police Commandos and oil coolers?

Adding an oil cooler to a Commando adds what, half a litre to the oil capacity ?
Depends on the size of your oil cooler, of course.

Some of the Commando oil tanks had variously marked dip sticks, didn't they ?
And you see the oil level decal all over the oil tank on dommies, they can't all be right ?

(And anyone who has owned a Guzzi knows that if you fill it to the FULL mark, it will blow the first half litre out.
Like adding an oil cooler to a Commando, adding the sump extension allows the full 3 litres to stay in there. Sheesh).
Read up on breather boxes, and various designs of...

P.S. We are curious about the logic of your intervention here LAB.
You allow personal wars and fantasy fests to go on in some topics, and step in on a minor point of error pointings out ??

Let’s see some good photos of added Norton oil coolers. I have a few Honda ones I am thinking about mounting but some ideas as to where to mount, how to route oil lines, whether to use a thermostat or not, and what size looks cool.

Maybe some data or anecdotal evidence of how well different ones work. One friend wants to add some aluminum billet oil coolers but I have my doubts that they will have any noticeable affect. But, they sure will look cool!

If I mount one high it might actually make my head run hotter!? Any way I like to see some ideas and hear about experiences.
Dan.

Alan Goldwaite [sp] came up with a heat sink version with Al plate against the oil tank and the fins stylishly proudly exposed through side cover.

I & others have cut slots in the front of oil cover but Wesley cut zigzag lightening bolt out his, mainly for art work boredoom.

What about the OIF's? May take a long time to warm up oil and might not hardly ever get hot enough w/o a thermo stat short cut complexity.

You would have to monitor oil temperatures under all operating conditions before considering adding any form of heat exchanger.
There must be plenty of information on that here already.
For those with closed minds, many problems cover a broad spectrum of makes, crank case venting which applies to oil is one of them.
If the vent is to small or positioned poorly (hello 1972 ?) you can have issues, if you have a car type engine :wink: and place a large solitary un baffled vent outlet over the spinning crankshaft then run a very small pipe from it, guess what, the oil will exit that high velocity pipe.
Even more oddly those same things happen on modern era motorcycles, large case reed valves are a fairly resent addition in the grand scheme of things.
Small subjects usually have a much larger picture unless they are suppressed by those who do not or will not understand.

I am willing to bet both 'Jim's know the name Smokey Yunick.

Time Warp said:

You would have to monitor oil temperatures under all operating conditions before considering adding any form of heat exchanger.
There must be plenty of information on that here already.

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Where ? From whom ?
You must be joking, this is a Norton forum !

Plenty of bikes have available to buy those little oil filler bungs with a thermometer built in.
Can't say i have noticed such a thing for a Commando.
But then the filler cap is not that conveniently located to be able to do that.

In normal riding, feeling the oil tank temp showed it didn't often get hot.
Not enough to warrant a cooler, so I didn't.
Checking that the oil tank was sufficiently full enough to keep the oil temps down was probably better insurance...

Your Commando looks pretty stock,
and your comments hard to fathom - you bin taking hobot lessons ?

So the oil cooler on a "Police Norton Commando" thread has multiple pages but to date has no relevance to oil temperature, I'm not sure 'it gets hot is scientific :lol:

Typical discussion here..... ?

I used to have a thermostatic bypass for my oil cooler. It was plumbed into the oil return line. When I first installed it it had a 200F thermostat in it. You had to really use the bike long and hard in hot weather to ever see it open.

Then I put a 180 degree thermostat in it. Even with the lower temp stat I would still see cylinder head temps around 500 degrees before I would ever get any flow through the cooler.

A few years ago I removed the thermostat completely and changed the oil lines around so just the oil that is going to the head runs through the cooler. It looked to me like the head needed the cooling help more than the oil in the tank. I have liked the result and noticed the oil does not get dark as soon. Jim

Harleys, as Commando closest relation, with very common oil temp caps, lists 230' as baseline while owners says w stop/go 255' is not unusual, nor cause many to install a cooler. No mystery on how hot various areas and fluids can get in Commandos & a wonder they never had them. That Police and desert nations got along w/o coolers is both disconcerting yet comforting to me. Fact of the matter is oil coolers have nil effect on how hot the oil gets only how hot it is re entering engine.

All owners should memorize Alan's classic data point study. This prompted Alan to come up with a unique no-hose solid state side cover cooler.
http://www.nortonclub.com/docs/OilTemp.pdf

Ta.

needing said:

http://www.nortonclub.com/docs/OilTemp.pdf

Concur with use of Redline products - confirms my choice.

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Plus one on that! I only use Redline in my bikes after experimenting with quite a few.

The article is interesting In that it 'blames' the high temps in the head for destroying the oil. If this is correct (which seems logical) then it seems to me an oil cooler won't help this particular aspect, as the oil has already been 'damaged'... an oil cooler will cool the oil again, but it can't repair the damage.

It seems a good argument for ceramic thermal barrier coating of the combustion chamber and exhaust ports to me. This reduces the amount of latent heat absorbed into the head. I did this on my Cdo, along with the piston crowns, and I do wonder if its a contributory factor why my engine appears not to ping even though its an 850 @ nearly 10.5:1 CR ?

Ceramic coating is no where near as expensive as you might think either, a company called Camcoat do it in UK and I highly recommend them. Given the variable quality of fuel these days, it seems a cheap way of getting an additional line of defence to me.

That said, an oil cooler certainly helps to keep the motor cool. Like, Jim, I also had a race bike (906cc Nourish based thing) that got SO hot, especially if left hanging around before a race, it would ping and knock and be very unhappy until it got moving and got some air flow, an oil cooler (from a Trident) cured this instantly.

Ta.

needing said:

Hi Fast Eddie.
I've tuned to run 620°C in the headers at cruising speed (110km/h where I live). Given that the thermocouple cops a hot blast only 1 in every 4 strokes I estimate the combustion chamber exceeds this dramatically. Your coating mod to the combustion chamber and piston crown must mean the heat is expelled in this cycle rather than absorbed. How significantly has the header colour changed? I have elected to flow cooler air through the head in an attempt to ease the heat load that I reckon only Redline is capable of enduring without breaking down. My oil can go into the engine from tank around 80+°C since the thermostat cuts in at 85°C.

Data sheet for Redline motorcycle oil. Note: 20W50
http://www.redlineoil.com/content/files ... 20Data.pdf

Photo of my oil cooler mounted clear of head airflow.

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Agreed, it should put more heat out in the ex gasses if coated.

Actually it hasn't blued my pipes much, but that's cos in its previous life it was burning oil and running rich and has thermal barrier coated the inside of the pipes with carbon!

It's on my list of things to do this winter, clean out the pipes, as I imagine it can't help with ex gas flow?

Reviewing what's known on Norton hot-heads, that head is main oil cooker and cool oil can actually lower head temps a dozen points or so, > Im' thinking a cooler on head supply might pay back more than cooling the main engine bulk flow. I actually like the looks of tiddy oil cooler installs but would not put a thermostat in head cooler. Open to ideas how to implement effective tiddy low mass head oil cooler for oil life and a bit more detonation protection. A moonshiner like worm appeals to me of course, maybe wrapped around the RH mid frame tube. I'd stick a temp gauge and flow meter inline to watch and read head oil flow volumes. I've disscussed increasing head oil flow with some the guru's to learn the limiting factor is getting any extra oil to drain out of head fast as it fills up.

EGT 620'C = 1148'F, which is great loafing around long term temp range. Best Norton dyno results are seen with EGT over 1300'F. Peel maxed out with 1375'F. Lots of references report best non-Norton air cooled engines can reach 1600'F. Peel head at plugs read some what below 300'F on 60-70 mph curise, rose to 325'F to ride 90 and above w/o WOT and 425'F really racing with sports bikes trying to hold WOT most the time. EGT changed in a second, CHT within 30 seconds and bulk oil temp in about 3 min with factory tank no cooler. Peel oil tank bottom got to 165'F up to 90 mph curise and 195'F playing racer games then cooled to 165' F in 3 min backing off to 90's mph curise but only 125'F at 60 mph or idle in still air testing. Maybe Peel's idle cooling was from the dry friction coatings? I left Peel idle about 800 rpm up against a wall in mid day sun in still air for half and hour to only see 8-900' EGT, 275' CHT and 125'F tank oil. When pushed off the cement pad on to level road trying not to give any more throttle than not to stall while creeping slow as I could the temps immediately started back up EGT 1200's, CHT low 300's and oil tank 140's.

I can buy that logic Steve, so, any comments on the viability / issues associated with fitting a small cooler in the rocker feed circuit chaps?

Just like any other motor, you run into the issue that it takes longer to warm up when it's cold out. You also prolong oiling the cam on startup because oil has to go through the cooler, through the head, down the follower tunnels and onto the cam. A lockhart cooler with thermostat or manual valve is probably a wise choice.

Ok I don't mind people helping me think this through so must consider a check valve in head feed so it stays topped up to flow to cam drain soon as oil pump builds some pressure in a few seconds to push positively past it. Only the bulk oil would need a thermostat to get to right running thickness and moisture expelling, not the head which gets hot pretty fast, especially around exht ports region. Will also find tiny oil temp guage to put on either end of head feed to see temp change. There is a lot of wind blast against the mid down tubes.

Ta.

Fast Eddie said:

I can buy that logic Steve, so, any comments on the viability / issues associated with fitting a small cooler in the rocker feed circuit chaps?

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The early dommies all had a metal pipe going up to the rocker feeds in the head.
If the pipe is pushed more to the side of the motor - rather than behind it - it would provide a measure of cooling to the oil going up there.

BTW, it could be interesting to do some airflow measuring on that neat oil cooler installation shown low down behind the front wheel there.
Airflow directly behind the front wheel is often quite minimal, its only out beyond the shadow of the wheel where the airblast is strong.
So only the edges of that cooler may be doing any cooling ?