Best Oil

[Lafytafy]

should i run a thicker oil in a older quad because it make a little more noise than usual 

[Gwbarm]

I might try 20w-50 over 10w-40, I also use Dino oil in older machines I think it has more minerals needed by older machines, just my thoughts.

[Saskatchewaner]

In older units where there is a bit of damage, synthetic oil leaks by easier than conventional. If everything is in perfect shape synthetic should lubricate better. 

I know some guys swear by cleaning out your oil with seafoam. You add it to the oil in the recommended amounts and run it x number of hours then do an oil change. 

[BRPfan]

Yeah I came here wondering what oil I should put in my 2002 quest, seems like some people say 10w-40?
Won’t be sure before consulting the manual first but I’m sure a thicker oil in an older quad would work similar to thicker oil in an older car.

[BRPfan]

On 4/29/2023 at 8:06 PM, Saskatchewaner said:

In older units where there is a bit of damage, synthetic oil leaks by easier than conventional. If everything is in perfect shape synthetic should lubricate better. 

I know some guys swear by cleaning out your oil with seafoam. You add it to the oil in the recommended amounts and run it x number of hours then do an oil change. 

Personally I’ve always been wary of cleaning out my oil.

Kinda worried that it’d flush out all the gunk holding the engine together haha!

[Gwbarm]

Same here, when I get one I don't know much about , I drain all the old oil out, no engine flush, add new oil and mix with a little marvel mystery oil, run it for an hour and change it to the oil I plan on running.

[kyote]

Rotella t4 15w40 is my go to.

[Gwbarm]

It is good oil, i have read mixed reviews about using it in wet clutch applications. The article i read recommended the Rotella T6, but i did use the t4 to clean up a water soaked engine and i liked it, and cheap at Wal Mart, had a good feel to it, but i ended up putting the OEM oil in it as the final oil.

[Mech]

You could try a slightly thicker oil Lafytafy but these engines don't have white-metal bearings like in cars and so the effect won't be as effective as it is doing it in a car engine. Bikes have roller bearings on the crank and need good oil flow rather than pressure. Thin oil flows better.

Depending where your noise is coming from it may help, or it may not. I'd try to figure out what the noise is first.

[kp3004x4]

Agree with you on that mech the bearings around most cranks need good oil flow. Like on some the flow goes out to the pull rope even I have seen in the past. Also never flush one because it might interfere with the special coating and even if you put new oil in ,the bearings will be not until heated to a point that the metal will soaks it back up. 

[flyinbrian365]

Make sure you don't use automotive motor oils where you have a wet clutch system or a transmission gear box. 

Automotive oils have friction modifiers that will eventually make your clutch plates slip.

Also automotive oils don't have shear stabilizers that ATV and motorcycle oils do and the gear box will shear the automotive oil and break it down quickly.

[beast6228]

I use Valvoline Motorcycle oil, 10w-40, as long as you change your oil on a regular basis, you will be good to go.   Some of the name branded oil like Kawasaki advertises Zinc in their oil for protection. The scam is that the Zinc does nothing, it's the Phosphorus in the oil that protects the valves, cams and piston rings. 

[Gwbarm]

Valvoline is a great oil, one of the older brands thats keeping up with technology. Good to know about the Zinc, i know a lot of diesel oils advertize zinc as vitamins older engines need, dont really mention phophorus. I still use the branded oils from Yamaha always seem to be high on the list of best oil. I like mobil1 , i run it in all my cars, have been meaning to try the Mobile 1 ATV oil but never seem to be able to find it locally. 

[joelhofer]

I always use the Honda oil, and I use 5-30 in the winter, I live in Montana where it gets downright crispy so I like the thinner oil in the cold months

[Gwbarm]

Thats a good weight to use it is colddddd! in Montana

[geezer99]

Regarding changing to a higher quality oil after a life of lower quality:  

Back in 1970 (newly married, and little money) I traded an old farm truck for a early 60s Corvair.  I was driving it on the freeway, and a huge bang sound and no drive power.  Pulled over, popped the hood, and found a rod poking put of the crankcase. 

I had recently changed oil.  My go to oil was Rotella T, a high detergentcy oil.  I later found out that the previous owner had been using a very basic oil with few detergent additives.

My take was the higher detergentcy oil loosed some chunks of deposits that then clogged up an oil passage to the failed rod.

This is all anecdotal, and I could be way off base, but I would be wary of changing types of oil on an old vehicle.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

tom

[Mech]

You are right about the high detergent oils Geezer.

We (mechanics) were warned about it in the seventies..

[Gwbarm]

Oil may very well have caused it , more friction and heat generated in an air cooled engine that was already too large of an engine to be air cooled, it was produced as rival to the volkswagon, volkswagon did it right, although even those, you did not want to run it under 40 MPH very long, GM did not, those air cooled six cylinder engines were prone to overheat especially the middle cylinders. Engine failure was pretty common in those engines. I didnt even know Rotella was around in the 70s. 

[Mech]

I never knew corvair was air cooled.. Not that we got them here.. That's very interesting..

Would it have been a copy of a Porche engine ?

[Gwbarm]

No it was not a boxer engine, it was a v6 and had dual carbs.

[Mech]

Nah I looked it up to see what they were like and there was a flat six. And air cooled.

Very tricky and not what I'd expect for yanky engineering. (I did see a post somewhere the other day saying that not all of America is/was yanky, only a few states ! ).. My bad.

Over here we used to say that pommy cars were built by idiots for experts to work on, and yanky cars were built by experts for idiots to work on..  haha. It was pretty much true too. All the pommy cars needed two mechanics, one to hold the twenty little hard to get at bolts on one side, while another mech undid the nuts. Yanky stuff just had four bolts and they were easy to get to.

A flat six air cooled turbo charged engine sounds very un-yanky !

[Gwbarm]

Sorry about that, I’ve only seen one in the 70s test drove it what a piece of junk it was, I knew it wasn’t a straight six I just assumed it was a v 6 never even thought of GM making a boxer engine.

[Mech]

No worries. I was pretty surprised they'd made one too.

And so tell me, is it an insult to Americans to be called Yank ? On another forum the other day someone was denying being a yank.. not to me, to someone else. A couple of them seemed to think it only applied to some northern, and I think north eastern, states..

[geezer99]

I can confirm that is was a flat six.  Mine was the dual carbureted model.  A friend had a fancier version with a turbo charger.  That was a fast auto.

It should be noted that to save $15 per car GM left out an anti-sway bar in the early days.  This caused a tendency to roll over in aggressive turns.  Ralph Nader wrote a whole book on the topic.  GM finally made the required changes, but the car was soon dropped.  My buddies car cornered very well.  I guess it was an newer model.  In my case, I guess it's better to be lucky than smart.

tom

1 hour ago, Mech said:

No worries. I was pretty surprised they'd made one too.

And so tell me, is it an insult to Americans to be called Yank ? On another forum the other day someone was denying being a yank.. not to me, to someone else. A couple of them seemed to think it only applied to some northern, and I think north eastern, states..

Here's  wikipedia article on the history of the song.  https://americansongwriter.com/meaning-of-yankee-doodle-song-lyrics/

Apparently it was written by the British to insult the colonists, but was taken up by the Yanks as a taunt to the Brits.

tom

[Mech]

Ha. Very good Geezer. It still doesn't really explain why they applied the Yanky bit of the old dutch lyrics though..

But, by the sound of it Yanky is generally accepted as a friendly enough moniker now. We N.Zers are happy enough to be known as Kiwi, which is a rather strange looking shy bird that can't fly !

 

[Gwbarm]

Im not a real expert in that area but i always thought yank was just a slang term left over from the civil war between the states in the 1800s.

[geezer99]

On 2/13/2024 at 2:04 PM, Mech said:

We N.Zers are happy enough to be known as Kiwi, which is a rather strange looking shy bird that can't fly !

 

When I was a kid, one of my chores was to polish my Dad's shoes.  I always liked the picture of the Kiwi bird on the can of polish.

tom

[Mech]

Oh is that right. And is this in America ? Kiwi boot polish is a kiwi icon, like taniwha soap and the buzzy-bee kids toy. I didn't know we exported it though.

[Gwbarm]

I had forgotten that havent polished a shoe in years, but the Kiwi was the best shoe polish growing up and im sure they still sell it just never buy it.

[Mech]

Well we did some things right !