Sunday, April 01, 2007

Oil Pressure

Going North from Seville to Madrid we were behind schedule so were +100 mph all the way with temperatures approaching 50 degrees c! at points. This little glass doohicky blew out and that was the end of the trip for him.

That "little glass doohicky" was actually a nice little idea ... it made visually checking the oil an easy thing to do. My previous bike's oil check routine was a pain. My Wing is a little inconvenient because it requires I remove a body panel to get at the oil dipstick.

But it sounds like given the conditions -- heat, high speed -- the oil pressure in the bike exceeded the engineering limits. Or the glass doohickey was slightly stressed and the conditions caused the oil pressure to exceed the limits of the now-distressed glass doohickey.

Those conditions can also shred an oil filter, allowing contaminants to flow into the engine.

Just the other day someone on the Goldwing online forum was saying that a particular brand of oil filter had failed and caused an engine to be ruined. It then came out that the bike was actually a competition drag motorcycle, and that the the filter used was a stock filter, not intended for racing. Yep, that'll do it.

Oil pressure, baby ... it's all about the oil pressure.

Automotive engineering is fascinating. I know little about it, but what I do know fascinates me.

No comments: