Break-In Done!

[Boxer]

I went for a spirited little ride today with a couple other guys up into the Georgia mountains, made a loop, ate lunch in Dahlonega and headed home. I added another 200 miles onto the odometer putting the mileage at about 675 by the time I got home. I quickly put her up on the center stand and loosened the oil drain plug. After letting it sit like that for a couple hours and then tilting it over to let another ounce or so flow out, I located the drain plug and cleaned it off. This is what it looked like.


YUCK! Ugly smooth gray sludge all over the magnetic tip on the drain plug. Some new oil and a new filter...she'll be ready to thrash a bit.

[snowprick]

Not like that....... like that. za za za!

[Boxer]

Hey! How'd you do that?

When the manual says use SAE 10W-40 API SF/SG/SH...does it mean it can be SF or SG or SH? ...or does it have to be all three on the bottle?

I recall having this same problem when I first started changing the oil in the Roadster, but I can't recall the solution. I eventually just went with synthetic. However, this F650GS has a wet clutch and...well, to avoid an all out bastige oil discussion, could someone just simply tell me if that manual means "ANY" of those or "ALL" of those!(SG-SF-SH)...'cause I can't find anything on the shelf at the store with all three designations on the label. I ended up bringing home 3 quarts of stuff that has SG and SH on the label but no SF! Am I destined to use this newly bought oil as hair tonic, or can I use it in my newly broken in bike?

[snowprick]

Hey! How'd you do that?

Apple Mac magic

[CycleRob]

Boxer,

That drain plug magnet looks OK. There's almost nothing on it, a sign of one who has patiently followed the rules. If it had a huge broccoli head shaped fuzzball with bigger chips and shards, THEN it would be a bad thing. My oil drainpan bottom sediment had a few Aluminum slivers from the clutch basket, also normal for new parts bedding in.

SH oil is the highest rating letter you should go. Newer oils after that the formula was changed by reducing/removing anti friction ingredients that were deemed to be harmful to catalytic converters . . . . so the newer oils are NOT as good!!

I got the Castrol 4T 4-stroke petroleum motorcycle oil SG, SH - - - formulated for wet clutches and transmissions, which even the very best car oils are NOT. AutoZone, about $6/Qt, 3.2 are needed. It MUST say motorcycle oil or else the extreme pressure additives for the transmission will not be there. Since the engine is water cooled and the temp bars have never gone beyond 60% full range in the sweltering 96F (35.5C) Summer traffic, I'll stick with the Dinosaur juice.

After filling up the oil filter over several minutes then wipping it into place without a spill, the startup was normal and the red oil pressure lite went out almost immediately.

.

[NoRRmad]

Hm. A machine translation from the Chinese of the above (now deleted) posting. Looks like somebody's testing a spam generator.

This is a new, blank article 1, in the UBB Visual Editor, add and modify the article contents.

Batten down the hatches!

[CycleRob]

Glad that SPAM bot is gone.

I got a PM asking advice about new bike break-in. Following is an article on that and a compilation of others mixed in with what I actually did.

Here is a copy-n-paste about Engine Break-In:

Its new, its pristine, how long do you have to baby it?
By Kevin Cameron, Originally published in Sportbike 1995 Annual

Break-in is the final finishing operation in manufacturing an engine--and you, the owner of a new bike, perform it. At the factory, the bike builder hones the cylinder walls to a fine finish, grinds cams and tappets to accurate, smooth profiles, and makes con-rod journals to high standards of roundness and accuracy. but even with all this, metal surfaces remain microscopically rough, consisting of tiny peaks and valleys. When you start a new engine, these surfaces must slide over each other; wherever the peaks stick up higher than the local oil film thickness, metal hits metal, welds momentarily from the intense local pressure, and then tears away. The oil sweeps a residue of particles away, carrying them to sump and filter. Some metal is simply pushed into shape, protected by oil additives, it deforms physically rather than being welded and torn.
Throughout the engine, this process works, quickly at 1st, then more slowly as break-in proceeds. Once the high spots are knocked or pushed down, the roughness of the surfaces no longer sticks above the oil films. Piston rings have filed themselves into a fine fit to their cylinders. Bearings spin without metal-to-metal contact, on full oil films. Break-in is complete.
This process can have three possible outcomes:
(1) If the break-in begins at high RPM and heavy throttle, the process may generate more heat and metal debris than the system can handle. Then the result is destruction of contact surfaces in some parts of the engine.
(2) If the break-in begins at a lower energy level and builds up gradually to higher revs and throttle, the washing action of the oil will keep up with the generation of wear particles, and the surfaces will bed into each other in such a way that the oil film can carry the load.
(3) The 3rd possibility is that break-in will fail-- usually as a result of such light-duty operation that parts are not loaded together forcefully enough to bed-in to one another. Rings glaze and fail to seal. The engine never delivers full power. Fortunately, this is rare where production machines are concerned.

Factory break-in procedures are designed to steer the middle course--not so vigorous as to damage surfaces, not so timid as to have no results at all. Generally, recommended break-in consists of operation at a variety of moderate speeds, alternating with no-load coasting. The idea behind this is that firm part-throttle operation for a period puts a load on bearings and other parts, forcing their surfaces together so they can polish each other to a fine fit. No-throttle coasting removes much of the load, allowing the oil system to flush away the wear particles. Gradually increasing the load (higher RPM and throttle) allows the bedding-in process to build up over time, rather than applying a possibly damaging load right at 1st.
Rob Muzzy of Kawasaki notes: "It wont break in until you really run it hard,' noting that, 'With today's thin, low friction rings, you can't get the parts to reach each other without a good load." He says his team breaks in its race engines in much the same manner as for the street: 30-60min of moderate operation on the dyno, just in case there are some really rough areas, followed by several pulls (that is, hard acceleration across the powerband.) He says that only by the 3rd pull does the engine begin to show its real power.
For a street machine owner, this dyno break-in translates to a period of moderate operation (Muzzy mentions 500 miles), followed by some hard acceleration. Sustained, high-speed operation is not a good idea because it provides no wash time at low load, during which the oil system can flush away heat & any wear particles.
Once the break-in mileage has elapsed, the oil and filter are changed to remove the metal-loaded oil, and the (possibly) heavily-loaded filter.
Break-in Lore and myths: You often hear something like this: "break it in fast and it will be fast, break it in slow and it will be slow." There is some truth here because break-in has to apply enough load to force the parts into mutual machining action. If you timidly try to break it in at very low speed and almost zero throttle, you may never force the piston rings to shave themselves into good contact with the cylinder walls. That will result in a poor seal--and a poor performance. But the 'break it in fast' part of the saying seems to imply that the faster you push during break-in, the faster your engine will be as a result. Not so. If you push too hard, too soon, the parts will score and scuff each other because the heat generated will be enough to destroy the oil film locally. A scuffed piston ring doesnt seal.
Many engine builders agree that you should not try to break in an engine on synthetic oil. If the oil film is too good, it will support even parts with extensive surface roughness. Only a small amount of local bedding-in may occur on the piston rings, in a poor fit (glazing) that improves only very slowly over time. Manufacturers of synthetic oils are almost unanimous in their insistence that this is not so, and that break-in is normal with their excellent products. But too many engineers and tuners have seen break-in either fail or take too long on synthetics for this to be the entire truth. Muzzy says that his team breaks in engines on mineral oil, and will run the fresh engine the entire first day at the track on the break-in oil, before draining and replacing with racing synthetic.
Synthetic oils are frequently chosen for racing use because low viscosities can be used that will cut friction losses by a small amount. This may be worth the trouble on the racetrack, but for street use, the choice between mineral and synthetic oils is yours. Street engines run well with mineral or synthetic oils of the recommended viscosity.
Your more important decision will be to follow a reasonable break-in procedure. Treat your engine with respect for its first 500 to 1000 miles, and it'll repay you by delivering its best possible performance.

--end of copy-n-paste--

The manual says to avoid sustained steady speeds/throttle like would occur on an Interstate highway. Also keep it under 5,000 and don't use full throttle. It's best to stay on backroads in rural areas where you seldom stop to idle and are changing gears going up-n-down small rolling hills.

A half dozen heat cycles are required to "cure" (stress relieve) the pistons as the perfectly round cylinder bores slowly "mold" the pistons into their final round shape. THAT is why fast break-ins are so very WRONG!! Gordon Jennings found that out when using an oven to stress relieve new pistons with several engine temp full hot/cold heat cycles. He measured them before, heat cycled them several times, then re-measured them. To his amazement they were completely distorted from their original measured shape and UN-USEABLE!

I Kept it under 5,000 RPM until 600 miles, no more than half throttle in normal riding (that's still a lot of GO power!) with 1 or 2 second (hot engine) full throttle bursts to 5K after the 500 mile mark. After 600 miles I gradually increased the RPM limit to redline over a few days riding after that. The engine MUST go to redline several times to finish the break-in as the connecting rods actually stretch/compress a very tiny additional amount at redline, pushing/pulling the piston rings that much further in the cylinder when passing the TDC and BDC directions. That extra distance is only reached at redline. You can use half throttle up a steep hill in a lower gear to prolong the time it spends there, speeding up the total break-in process.

After doing many 600 mile oil changes in my NJ shop, I have seen the differences between bikes broken in fast and others by the owner's manual recommendation. Using a clean pan, I could observe the amount of glitter in the drainpan and know, to the amazement of the customer, how the bike was broken in. I remember a ZX-9 with so much glitter particles that they were almost touching each other -and- it had a very noisy hot idle.

IMO, MotoMan is narrowly focused on pistons, naive and virtually alone in his "run-it-hard" quickly break-in advice. Race engine builders that nearly agree with him do not have 50,000 mile, 10 year plans for their built engines. Drainpan glitter doesn't lie. Be patient with a virgin motor and she'll reward you with years of quiet power.

.