Oil turns black fast after oil change

[Triam]

Just what the title says. It's noticeably black after less than 500 miles of riding. Does this mean anything significant or is it just par for the course on this bike?

[JEEPRUSTY]

How many oil changes has this occurred for?
If just one then change the oil and see what happens after another 500 miles.

[Nessism]

If the rings are leaking a lot of blow by contamination will enter the oil. A leak down test will tell the tale.

Sludge in the engine will also contaminate the new oil quickly. Putting the engine on a 1000 mile oil change diet will help clean it up if this is the case. Dropping the oil pan will tell the tale here.

[Triam]

Well, here's the pan after I first bought the bike. There was no oil going to the top end.



That was at least 2 oil changes ago. Needless to say that I cleaned that pan up, installed it, then I put some seafoam in my oil and ran it for about 10 miles and drained the oil again. I just changed it to the mobil delvac 1300 (I had car oil in it before, the clutch felt all kinds of funny) so I'll watch the odometer to tell you exactly when it happens.

[Big T]

The oil is doing what it should, cleaning the old sludge out of your motor and putting in suspension

[Guest]

Hard to tell from the picture, but is that a brass float needle in the pan???

[Chris G]

Hard to tell from the picture, but is that a brass float needle in the pan???

That's what I thought on first seeing the pic, just to add the oil in mine goes dark, not black after a few hundred miles, I've changed it twice now don't know the history of your bike but mine had only done 4k in the last 10yrs so no doubt a build up of gunk in there, I'll just do changes more frequently and keep an eye on it.

[Brendan W]

I wouldn't worry too much about it. My oil appears dark almost immediately after a change, I haven't seen published figures for these motors but those I have seen quote up to 15% more oil than the stated capacity for a factory fill, i.e. from dry. So there could be 300cc or more, undrainable old oil at every change. I too dropped the pan and cleaned it, still it's dark. The viewing window is dirtier than you think and the metal behind it also giving the illusion that it's darker than it really is. I have an oil leak or two and whatever comes out there is crystal clear - almost. So unless the leaks have some kind of filtering action my oil is a lot cleaner than what appears in the window.

[Grimly]

One of mine got so bad it was like a constant-loss system. Normally, in personal or commuting use, it would have been tolerable for a while, but in daily constant duty, it became a right pita, so I was forced re-gasket the entire engine on the grounds that if I'm taking it apart it would be a waste of effort to only do one bit. The main bugbear was the standard base gasket leak, and if you're taking it apart that far, everything else needs done while you're at it anyway.
This is always a problem with POs, you don't know if they've cheaped out on aftermarket gaskets or not.

[Brendan W]

One of mine got so bad it was like a constant-loss system. Normally, in personal or commuting use, it would have been tolerable for a while, but in daily constant duty, it became a right pita, so I was forced re-gasket the entire engine on the grounds that if I'm taking it apart it would be a waste of effort to only do one bit. The main bugbear was the standard base gasket leak, and if you're taking it apart that far, everything else needs done while you're at it anyway.
This is always a problem with POs, you don't know if they've cheaped out on aftermarket gaskets or not.

I'm not quite at total loss, it's about 50%. Over the years I have at great expense developed the ability to meddle with and break working machines. In fairness there have been a lot of exploratory visits to the motor and when that settles down I can think about leaks. Gaskets are in my future but the motivation ( oil loss ) is too small for the moment.