Temperature of the Oil in the tank?

Let the logic and reports guide you or wishful thinking. Its bad ju ju to sit at idle at anytime or temperature, not because of oil temps but d/t blow by moisture which is highest then and cam lobes not fast enough to surf on oil. Every cam run in instruction says takes like 20 min at 2000+ rpm, so rpms below that are accelerating lobe wear. I feel uneasy to idle long or slow so try to avoid it even though I love the slow soft sounds and all my 3 temp gauges are well below legal cruise temps. Comstock reports same temperature deep inside head when idled still for 20 min or when run over the ton for some minutes. So logic says don't sit on idle for 20 min and don't run over the ton more than a minute or engine and oil will become like beef jerky. Makes my wonder how the UK police bikes ever made it back to the garage on their own power. I'm grinning at picture of the police being ordered to shut down in parade duty or speeding ticket watch then kick off for a quick run to a stop.

The basic issue is > does cool oil protect our Norton engines in any way or just the oil?
1. Oil is worth about 6% of Norton engine cooling.
2. No amount of oil cooling will lower the head temps nor the bearing and bush spaces that oil flow actually does cool by trading oil shear heat friction for metal rub friction.
3. Valve guide sticking or seats welding have nothing to do with oil temps but everything to do with fuel mixture and prior intervals of accelerated wear sitting at idle or over reving or just poor parts and assembly.
4. Its the time spent above ambient temperature more than temps above ambient that evaporate moisture, but hotter shorter nearer boiling is better than cooler longer under 170' F.
5. White lightening only gets water diluted if mash temps get over 178' F and held there, so provision made to throttle down.
6. The fact that best oil coolers have thermostats is evidence that too cool oil is not good practice
7. Harely's meant for parade use have external fan directed at heads not the oil cooler, though some even have that wise feature to protect oil in addition to the head parts.
8. If operation conditions raise oil temps into boiling range then oil cooler is a good thing but will not protect engine heating distortion just the oil and additive life.
9. Harley's with oil coolers are also sold with a leather cover for too cool conditions even though thermostat only opens around 160' F.
10. The microscopic oxidation of hardened or coated surfaces is a definite factor of gradual flaking off even w/o friction contact till rough or worn enough its a show stopper.

The entertainment just never stops coming!

Seems to me that money and time would be better invested in helping the metal shed heat (heat dissipating paint, extra fins, no blockage of air flow) and letting the oil stay warm! If the metal is cooler it will translate to cooler oil. I never understood the idea of putting an oil cooler right in front of an air cooled engine like it was a radiator anyway. I used to run one an a VW but it wasn't mounted in front of the jugs, since blocking that airflow was part of why we needed an oil cooler in the first place. If you want an oil cooler find a way to mount it somewhere else!

Russ

I acquired this oil cooler that someone did a nice job of making, and it doesn't block airflow to the engine.

I originally thought about running an oil-cooler but decided against it. I think that the slightly increased volume in the tank and the "lazy" routing of the lines will give me basically 1/3 of a cooler (honestly I think that the increased volume of oil will benefit the bike the most, slower "turnover" and all that).

At this point I am just looking for a Brass sight-glass/window to cut into the oil tank and the only reason I started this was to make sure that the glass could handle the temperatures encountered.

The bike will be ridden sanely (most of the time), not raced or "hot rodded" (much) and honestly not ridden all that much (probably under 5,000 miles a year).

Vince

Unclviny said:

(honestly I think that the increased volume of oil will benefit the bike the most, slower "turnover" and all that)

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+1

lcrken said:

Good article on real world measurements of Norton oil and engine temps here

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

Temps can get significantly higher under race conditions. I measured oil temp in tank on my roadrace Norton Commando back in the '70s several times. Temp in tank right after coming off track was as high as 280 F several times, particularly at fast tracks like Willow Springs on 100+ days in Summer. That's with high compression race engine and no oil cooler.

Ken

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Per the OP request, my hunch would be to select a sight glass material that can handle +280 F (say 300 F). Based on your expected use, if you get even close to that temperature you have some other way more serious problems that would have been detected and corrected 10 miles/10 hours earlier.

Thanks,
That was my instinct too, I'll look for a glass that is rated for 150C and it should last forever on a stock Commando used on the roads.

Vince

You can find all kinds of sight glasses online and also the tempered glass plate or tube in various sizes and shapes to roll your own like I may have to. Also occurred to me to make a peep sight in gas tank too.

Does anyone know how much factory drain capacity there is over the factory feeding amounts. In other-words how much more oil could be let out and not back up. What would happen if the rocker boxed filled up then pressurized, or could they with say the spindled flipped to jet oil in there? I really don't think Norton rocker oil is enough to matter heat wise, just friction area wise on spindles and rocker cups and maybe splash on springs rubbing and flexing.

Best info I've gleaned says best to keep more oil flowing over non friction surfaces so it stays cooler yet picks up more surface heat, as long as oil cooling can keep up with the heat flow. So can we improve anything in the head survival? Say if spindles opened up or flipped for full oil flow, can we also provide to drain that down in time?

On my factory Combat in as heated conditions as I'll ever run it, I think Norton got it good enough as is, to supply just enough oil in rockers it don't lower the crank oil pressure and can still drain down w/o filling up. Comstock rifle drilled his cam with pretty small holes - on the order we'd need to feed extra oil in 4 rocker boxes, but then had to make half again bigger pump to have oil pressure showing at cruise.

Funny how much recoil there is comparing Harley's with Nortons yet closest relatives that can share parts and wisdom with.

IronButt smitty901 Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: WI Posts: 954

What's more important, being worried about head temp of an air cooled motor or the oil temp that pulls head from that air cooled motor?

Oil temp has nothing to do with heads temps on any HD except the 1200 with oil cooled heads . Your wasting your time if you buy any of the BS that oil coolers cool heads on an HD. The small amount of oil that goes to the heads is lube. It is not enough volume to provide any measurable cooling on the heads once warmed. Wishing and hoping aint going to change that. I ride my HD 20-60K a year in traffic and on the highway. I use syn oil and lube because it helps me sleep not sure it is all that much better. On the newer TC I change oil every 5k on my EVO every 2500. Never had any major engine failure and never had on melt yet.
Wasting of time worrying about it service it care for it and ride.
Want a real eye opener put a thermal gun to the heads in traffic on a hot day in the city. 250-270 ok try more like 350-360.
It is a BIG air cooled engine ride.

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My experience with a Norton engine overheating from Idling comes from being in a line up at the Canada US border on a hot day. I didn't think an engine would get too hot just from idling either. But after my bike had been mostly idling for about 40 minutes, but occasionally having to pull forward, it did get really hot and it started smoking. I didn't take any temperature measurements. but the cylinder head was way over boiling temperature, and the oil tank felt really hot as well. I think that eventually the whole engine and the oil got really hot. I turned the engine off and pushed the bike forwards instead of running the engine in order to let it cool off. After cooling down the bike ran normally and didn't smoke at all.

My bike is a pretty stock 850 with very little wear on the pistons rings or valve guides.

Congratulations! You drove off all the water in the oil. :wink:

From my experience, the Norton can handle a lot of heat. This from my days with the Drouin supercharger. I don't recommend, I avoid it, but I know it can handle it.

Ugh, 40 min. idle and creeping ok I give in with - highly unlikely but entirely possible to idle and blip along soo long it over heats. If you were as proper and disciplined as the gold standards here, you should of shut off every few minutes regardless of issue of where to stop that long. But so what, if didn't sieze and operated fine afterwards, what did ya really do but spoil the oil? I'd be sick too if that happened to me [ it has but not a long idling reason] but really, anyone, what was actualy injured that needed attendance yet but for another oil change?

Peel was exceptional in her power response for a Combat - and did not ever over heat sitting still watching meters. Maybe just maybe the cryo tempering bragging on less friction, thermal distortion and wear is mostly true and that tungsten oxide dry friction coating claims for, bearings, cam, lifters, cogs, crank journals, shells and rod small ends, valve guides and piston pins and piston sides, actually worked for a while to reduce friction and heat futher detectablly?

Can't wait to see what the ceramics and black body emissions coats do to meters and one deep in head like Jim's.

Btw there are casting blockages to clear in the barrels and head plus not a bad idea to drill a hole in the solid top fin of the V to vent the pocket of trapped air.

Ensure the timing is right and slighly rich is better than any oil cooler, if you dont believe this turn out your air screws and watch your exhaust turn bright red :!:

Hm, so just what is the pumping volumes at various rpms and the ratio of crank vs head flow?

I'm trying to grock this oil temp thing to the N'th degree. Already ben talked out of anything below 40 weight.
Best I can glean is 180-190' F is what I should seek in Peel's deal. There is an award winning invention that lowers gas mileage significantly, an exhaust system that pre-heats the oil to 300' F before it enters engine so it creates less drag pumping it around. Are they trading gasoline economy for less wear economy or just cooking oil for the companies to sell more? Hehe try making oil temp sense out of this short discussion on Popular Science award reasoning and counterpoints.
http://www.the370z.com/engine-drivetrai ... eater.html


I've run Trixie w/o her exhaust rockers on, to get a spray of oil out past the head lamp and still accumulating 1/4" deep puddles in the nooks and covering the spring seat.

Got this for public online display back in May, 2012

Hi Steve,

The file for the cooler is at:
http://inoanorton.com/docs/cool-tec.pdf

and the accompanying article is at:
http://inoanorton.com/docs/OilTemp.pdf

You can distribute these links on other lists but please don't copy and post the files themselves anywhere else.
This is to ensure that any future revisions I make will be effective.

How is the lovely Ms Peel these days? That supercharger looked pretty serious!

Best regards,
Alan

hobot said:

http://www.the370z.com/engine-drivetrain/56722-awarded-invention-popsci-continuous-engine-oil-heater.html

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Reads engine "FAIL" sooner.

It may have some applications in arctic conditions which is off the charts for Nortons. I've never seen it used before.

Yep Shrapnel, lower engine life is covered in the outsiders review and make sense to me too. Peel's OIF with have 10 to 15 feet frame cooling depending on whether she's nose up or down or level. Its temperature revealed by the thermal color change paint and thermometers. Alan Goldwater's articles mentions he had 190' F oil entering the engine from his factory oil tank. I've not heard what oil temps racers can reach, but want too, as I want to burn even more fuel faster than them. Redline and Royal Purple have appeal for their 500+ F tolerance that might be needed on summer track days and sand dunes play.

280 F was cited above on this thread. So there you go.

Oh yeah Alan did summarize with saying 280' F a reasonable assumed base line oil temp average. I saw how hard it is to over heat my well tuned Combat, even with hardly a quart left after oil filter worked loose, discovered testing traction break frees on Peel right before entering serious tights she got squirrely on me, saving bike/me in nick of time. Used trash on road to twist hot filter back on then rode 20 miles back slowly upping speed going by the oil tank temp but only saw it get to same 165'F as normal 55-65 cruise.

So what have you found or do for all out racers oil temps?



PS. Consider my state of awe on Peel, when I say I was pre-testing break free, I don't mean like a lazy flat tracker drift, as there's no room to do in 9 ft wide secondary road lanes, I mean down shifting for best power band about ignoring rpms, so any tip off vertical tripped her right down into a full low side on spun out rear tire, so never had to let off entering or even work bars going around, only tip bike up and down a little bit to crash into the ground, expending most my "athletics" holding breath and throttle against the single carb spring. That's just middle of the road Phase 3 handling though, as Phase 4 requires a bit more space for the air borne side ways travel twisting in flight to land right and bounce away like a hammer hit on a full aired tire. But these Phases still have slight cuts in throttle to hook up hi sides and instants of acceleration hesitation on the break free's or air time, so mostly worried about oil temps on Phase 5 - no let off fish tailing upright burn out sprints through turns, just like parking lot stunts at go to jail speeds.

hobot said:

Oh yeah Alan did summarize with saying 280' F a reasonable assumed base line oil temp average.

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I don't agree with that being reasonable for an average; I think the correct term is baloney. Yes, you can have bits of oil going well above 300 F in the engine but in the context of the original posters question, design the site glass for 280 to 300 F and include a margin of safety when designing.

Furthermore, I do not see where the Alan Goldwater article I cited states anything like that. When I mentioned 280 F, this was from a fellow racer/builder who made the statement that 280 F was the highest he had ever seen in a tank.

Where did you get that from??????

hobot said:

So what have you found or do for all out racers oil temps?

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Keep the bike moving - fast!

Use oils that better tolerate race conditions

Typically use aluminum oil tanks and sometimes up the oil quantity in order to increase residence time in the tank.

In some instances, an oil cooler is included in the return line based on competent guidance, good judgement and direct measurement of oil temperature.

I generally begin to get concerned when the oil in the tank starts to top 210 F to 230 F.

A fellow builder/racer brought his HD KR in off the track once and was all excited because his oil tank temp went up to 230 F. He knew something was wrong. It turned out the cage around the knife and blade bearings on the big end were giving up the ghost, thus torching the oil.

Hm, can't find where I got idea to set up for assumed 280' F temp form but do appreciate knowing that racer oil tanks over boiling ain't that big a deal.
Also informative that unexpected temp rise could mean extra friction inside to deal with before you know what. I hope I can see OIF frame temp rise a good bit when Peel piston jets turn on, as means its sucking significant detonation heat off the crowns. Don't know yet if I'll have to insulate the spinal tube to rise temps enough or to keep the gasoline cooler.