WFO
Member
- Dec 27, 1999
- 84
- 0
From an old June '01 thread on synthetic vs petroleum based oils, Rich made the following remark.
"Air cooled engines have the MOST to gain from running a quality synthetic oil, but changing to synthetic oil on a bike that has run it's whole life on mineral oil is asking for clutch and seal problems. I would keep using the Castrol and just keep it clean by changing it regularly. "
I just bought a '97 YZ 250 and, from the title, I'm about the fourth owner. From the smell, the last one was running bean oil, but Lord only knows what all has been run through it before. However, the bike itself is in excellent shape.
From Rich's statement above, would it be safe to say that,
1. Given a reasonable amount of regular maintenance and,
2. The fact that I'm pretty easy on bikes and clutches....
would the difference between QUALITY oils (and I know that term itself could cause argument) be slight enough that in my case, my major concern would be protecting my seals?
To take this a step farther....does the deteriorating effect work both ways? For instance, not knowing what 's been used before, would using a petroleum based oil in an engine used to synthetics be less likely to cause seal damage than the other way around?
"Air cooled engines have the MOST to gain from running a quality synthetic oil, but changing to synthetic oil on a bike that has run it's whole life on mineral oil is asking for clutch and seal problems. I would keep using the Castrol and just keep it clean by changing it regularly. "
I just bought a '97 YZ 250 and, from the title, I'm about the fourth owner. From the smell, the last one was running bean oil, but Lord only knows what all has been run through it before. However, the bike itself is in excellent shape.
From Rich's statement above, would it be safe to say that,
1. Given a reasonable amount of regular maintenance and,
2. The fact that I'm pretty easy on bikes and clutches....
would the difference between QUALITY oils (and I know that term itself could cause argument) be slight enough that in my case, my major concern would be protecting my seals?
To take this a step farther....does the deteriorating effect work both ways? For instance, not knowing what 's been used before, would using a petroleum based oil in an engine used to synthetics be less likely to cause seal damage than the other way around?