oil change

[CNF2002]

I'm prepping for a 360 mile trip on Saturday...unfortunately my next oil change is due in 300 miles. I want to change the oil and, while I have the oil, I don't have an oil filter. The only time I have to do it is tonight, but since I'm working 14 hour days today and tomarrow and leaving 4am Sat night, there's no way I can get to a dealership to buy an oilfilter.

I run synthetic, changed every 2,500 miles. Any harm seen in changing the oil now and changing the filter when I get back from my trip? Its either that, or leave the bike home.

Or is there an oil filter crossreference sheet for car filters somewhere? I do hate going to the dealership all the time just for a filter.

[sharpmagna]

Uhh, your going to lose some oil when you pull that filter off so in effect you'll be changing the oil twice.

I doubt you'll have any problems going a bit over on your oil change interval so I wouldn't go through all the trouble now if you're going to have to do it all over again later...

[TechTMW]

I run synthetic, changed every 2,500 miles.

You are wasting your money. Buy regular dino oil if you want to change it this often. But hey it's your money. You can run this same oil for your trip. Don't worry about it.

[CNF2002]

The reason I run synthetic is (primarily) because I run it in the cars and its just personal brand preference. Since the thing only takes a quart, it doesn't hit the wallet to use it.

I run extended intervals in my cars with synthetic, I'm just not sure about doing it with this air-cooled single-cylinder bike. I'll be about 500 past my oilchange mileage when I get home after the trip on Sunday. Don't think its worth worrying about?

Maybe...this is my first long-range trip. Just want to make sure all my ducks are in a row.

[TechTMW]

Synthetics are specifically designed to protect against all of the things that make a long oil change interval 'riskier'.

Furthermore, the Blast (Like an airhead bmw) does not share its engine oil w/ its clutch or transmission. Most airheads I know (including myself) only change their filter every OTHER change specifically because of this. There's alot less crud rollin around in your crankcase than most other bikes.

Do what feels best to you, but you're not going to hurt anything by running over your interval a few hundred miles.

[dieziege]

Check walmart, autozone, and other shops like that... they all seem to have filters for my bike... maybe yours too....

However... that's the minor point. The major issue is... don't change the oil every 2500 miles! Not synthetic. That's just silly. 4000 if you are really paranoid or 6000 if you want to feel like a real johnny-on-the-ball type. Changing so frequently is probably causing more wear (because you have to run with no oil while the filter and passages fill) than you would running the same oil for 8,000 miles. It is certainly causing more possibility for catastrophic failures both major (forgot to put the plug/filter in tight and it dumps oil on your back tire causing major engine damage and a spill) and minor (you run the risk of stripping, cross threading, or getting grit in the threads every time you unscrew the filter/oil plug...that could leave your engine unusable until it was fixed).

I swapped dino oil at 400mi, then at 1200mi or so I drained it and swapped in synthetic.... now at 4850 and will go to 6000 before I change it again.

On my cars I change synthetic oil every 15-20K miles... and last time I had the oil pan off one of them (I was driving on a rough road and it hit the surface, cracking) the engine internals were in PERFECT condition... beautifully clean, no visible wear, no tar or crud or dirt build-up... I've taken the pans off of cars that had dino oil changed every 3000 miles (and had less than the 120,000 miles my engine had) that looked far worse.

It's not just me... modern BMW cars have a 15,000-25,000 mile oil change interval... a lot of modern cars started specifying 10,000 miles and more... and the intervals will stretch as the manufactures start paying more attention to their bottom line and less to their dealer's service depts'.

Synthetic really is different than the oil crappy dino sludge you grew up with.... but people are still changing it as though it was dino sludge... sad waste of time and money.

[ZooTech]

I run synthetic in mine and change it roughly every 5000 miles. You're just throwin' good oil away changing it at 2500.

[CNF2002]

Some very good points. So far I've just been following the service manual to the letter, although I wouldn't mind extending my service intervals. First-bike jitters. Thanks for the tips.

PS: I'm not too worried about crossthreading my oil plug, I've screwed/unscrewed bolts thousands of times and I've only done it once (on a block! had to redrill it and put in a bigger bolt)...oops, knock on wood.

[dieziege]

Yeah, I was fearmongering.

Synth oil really is better... enough better that you are probably better off just changing it once or twice a year when you do other things (e.g. before winter storage winter storage if you suffer with lousy climate issues) and not worrying about the miles.

[CNF2002]

Good advice. But without getting an engineering degree its pretty hard to sift through all the marketing BS.