Oil Weight

[staffordworks]

My '95 K75 was handed to me with 20-50 part synth in it, guy I bought it from said the original owner had always run that where it was from, Minnesota.  Local bike shop guru dude (pacific nw) says huh? might be somethin you'd run in Arizona but not here and certainly not Minnesota, does the original owner know something about K-bikes we don't or should I switch to something more conventional?

[JamesInCA]

Did it come with an owner's manual? There's a pretty explicit guide to oil weights recommended for various ambient temperature ranges.

[WayneDW]

Hi, please take a peak at this recent oil choice thread for others' preference:
http://www.motobrick.com/index.php/topic,3881.0.html

The BMW manual says 20W50, Haynes says you may want to go down to a 10W30 if riding in cold weather.

I've used 20W50 here in MN and it worked fine.  But I don't ride in the winter.

If you ride both winter and summer you may want to change weights from one season to the next or compromise with a 10W50 year around.

[staffordworks]

thanks, yea i seem to recall the manual saying that too, but manuals are kind of like doctors, you take what they have to say with a grain of salt.

mine feels like, particularly in the summer, even up north here that it runs hot, hates scooting in traffic in the city but only on rare occasion in the middle of winter got bitchy starting so I  think I should just keep it as is. 

[Chaos]

I run 10-40 usually.  20-50 is good for air cooled or racing engines, but water-cooled street engines should never get hot enough to need 20-50. 

[TimTyler]

I'm not sure how much my oil weighs, but I use a Winter rating of 15 year long in the bike. Seems to work okay for this fellow Washingtonian.

[CRASH]

Last I checked my oil weighed 32 ounces a bottle.  i think that is still what a quart weighs.  :neener: