Oil change from hell!

[Tim Tom]

So looking at my odometer on my 850G the other day I realize I am about due for an oil change. Since I was planning a trip into NY on Sunday I figured I would change the oil on Saturday. I go to my local stealership, buy my oil, the new filter, and get started. Oil change goes fairly standard the first time around. Until I notice a leak from the filter cover. I grab my socket, and tighten them down until.... disaster strikes! Those acorn nuts are absurdly easy to strip the threads on. So now I have a leaking bike, and only 1 good acorn left. I drain the new oil as it was getting late.

The next morning I start to try to back out the acorns. This did not work. So I had to use more extreme measures. I figured with a dremel I would be able to notch out the acorn and remove both that and the shaft. This was all good in theory, except that the dremel I borrowed had a broken clamp head in the tip. This meant that before I could fix my bike I had to fix my friends tools! About an hour of careful drilling and pulling and I was able to make the dremel usable again. It took me another hour or two to remove the acorns and shafts. I figured I'd better replace all three while i was at it. So with the old shafts out I bolted the cover back in, filled the bike back up with oil. Took it for a test spin around the block and.... LEAKING STILL!!!!
At this time I realized the O-ring gasket must be shot. Luckily enough I had one. At home, 90 miles from school where the bike and I are. Also lucky was that my dad needed to come up for business today anyhow so he brought me the seal. At this time its Monday. I had an exam tonight so I spend the day studying figuring it would take me half an hour to replace the seal. BAD IDEA. The seal doesn't quite fit, and no amount of fussing was gonna make it. I did what I should have done days ago and looked up in the bible of all things GS (Thanks Basscliff, no blasphemy intended) and saw he recommends placing the seals under a book or weight to flatten them out!!! So that is where I stand now. A bike with no oil, a seal under 20 pounds of books (college text books are big) and all kinds of frustrated.

As it stands now I will try again in the morning, and hopefully will be able to get it back together. I was planning on going to the shore to ride with my brother who I haven't seen in 3 months, and I'll be damned if something silly like this is going to stop me!

Sorry about the rant, I just can't get over the fact that I've been doing a damn oil change going on 3 days now!!

 

[bonanzadave]

Friday night: Grabbed a filter and new o-ring on my way home from work. 5 minutes of finding the drain pan, sockets, ratchet, Rotella T I bought a month ago. Pulled the plug and filter cover and then left. Sat Morn: Put in the plug, filter/cover (smear on hi-temp grease to hold the o-ring), gallon of oil. Went for a ride.........

 

[tkent02]

Friday night, thought about an oil change.
Saturday, changed my mind and went riding.

 

[Steve]

I feel your pain. Several years ago (about 30, actually), it took three days to do a tune-up on my turbo Corolla. Did all the usual stuff, plugs, points, condensor, oil, filter, etc. Decided to tighten the header because I cold hear a slight leak. The bolt stripped in the aluminum head. No problem, just tap it for a 5/16" SAE bolt. Broke the tap in the hole. Removed the header, used a nail punch to slowly work the tap loose. Cracked the mounting boss that the hole was in. Removed the head, took it to a shop that built the area back up and installed Heli-Coils for all the intake and exhaust manifold bolts. Got it all back together and went for a celibratory test ride on the third day.

.

 

[makenzie71]

I thought about changing my oil in March.

 

[almarconi]

If your working on old bikes or cars, you HAVE to expect that kind of thing to happen. It is very unusual for things to go smoothly. Always plan to spend more time than you think you will need when repairing an old vehicle.

I remember trying to remove the wheel on a friends Tahoe, it took us about 6 hours to get it removed. The first five lug nuts came off no problem but the sixth one would not budge. No amount of hammering or cussing was getting that lug nut off. We eventually stripped the head of the nut. In order to finally remove it, we had to use a torch to heat the lug, drive a socket over it and use an impact wrench. The lug nut had rusted onto the stud.

 

[Steve]

If your working on old bikes or cars, you HAVE to expect that kind of thing to happen. It is very unusual for things to go smoothly. Always plan to spend more time than you think you will need when repairing an old vehicle.

THIS is exactly why most motorcycle shops have a "10-year rule".

No bike is worked on that is more than 10 years old. They don't have to stock as many parts, their "technicians" don't have to know as much, and they don't have as many surprises on the time clock.

.

 

[Mr Toga]

THIS is exactly why most motorcycle shops have a "10-year rule".

No bike is worked on that is more than 10 years old. They don't have to stock as many parts, their "technicians" don't have to know as much, and they don't have as many surprises on the time clock.

.

I guess I should consider myself lucky. The Zook dealership on my block will actually work on the older bikes

 

[cowboyup3371]

How's this one for you. Take an 91 firebird in for an oil change and valve cover gasket change since it was leaking from there. Should have been done inside of two hours or so. Turned a couple of bolts that proceeded to break off inside the head because the previous owner of the car didn't bother to remove them when he broke them. Four months later of rebuilding the motor and over 2000 dollars in parts I bought a new car.

 

[Charlie G]

I had an oil change disaster Sunday as well. Drained it fine, new filter in, and filled it up. Started the bike, oil light goes out and it idols for 30 seconds or so and I hear this blurb...blurp and look under the bike to see oil spread in a 18 inch circle. Freeeekin o-rings!!! 2 hours later all cleaned up, tools, garage floor, dust pans , ect. put away.

So flatten them with a book, and use grease to hold them in and what else?

Charlie G

 

[Guest]

I had an exam tonight so I spend the day studying figuring it would take me half an hour to replace the seal. BAD IDEA. The seal doesn't quite fit, and no amount of fussing was gonna make it.

Sorry about the rant, I just can't get over the fact that I've been doing a damn oil change going on 3 days now!!

Make sure the o-ring is the correct one for your bike, to begin with....compare to the old one, or to the shape of it's groove in the filter cover. If it came with a Fram filter you bought, know that they often include the wrong o-ring . I use OEM filters & o-rings (these last for several years), or Wix, which comes with free good quality o-rings too.

 

[boingk]

THIS is exactly why most motorcycle shops have a "10-year rule".

Yeah? Geez... different story over here. Most of the guys in the shops I frequent are pretty keen and no matter what you rock up with they'll go to work on it. Hell, they all loved when I took the GSX-1100EF down for a tyre change - couple of them were very interested and said they remembered riding/working on them when they were new and would have bought it if they knew about it being for sale.

Back on track... my simple oil change on the 1100 turned out to be a bit irritating. Firstly, Dad didn't have a socket or wrench the right size. Secondly, I went into town to get a 21mm wrench. Got a cheap tube wrench and went back... destroyed the wrench. 2nd time went in with my Father (his place, his tool set) and he got a decent 21mm socket for his set. After the plug came out, found out it'd been fitted without a washer. Didn't have one to suit to had to hand-tool a brass one so it'd fit. Filter and o-ring change went ahead without a heap of hassle - a big vote for the OEM items.

Big pain in the ass when you think it'll take 10 minutes and it ends up being an hour or two haha.

- boingk

 

[ddaniels]

My worse oil change was on my '95 GPZ1100, when I decided it might be a good idea to run some GUNK engine flush in there to clean things out really good. But, when I drained it after letting it run for a few minutes, I forgot that some of it remains in the oil cooler, and I should have removed one of the hoses and drained it out of there too. Long story short, the remaining GUNK that ended up in the new oil decreased the viscosity of the new oil enough to spin a rod bearing. Moral: Don't use GUNK engine flush in your bike!

 

[Tim Tom]

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!!

I have finally fixed the issue! It took me a good 3 hours this morning to get the seal to sit right, and bolt the cover on before it slipped out again. But it's on, its not leaking, and I am happy. I found some good grease and that helped a lot. I just came back from the test run and its still dry and no drips

Next stop is the store to replace the quart of oil that I lost over the the course of this adventure. Then southward bound to the ocean! Perhaps when I get there I will get a nice picture of the non leak, as a thanks of sorts for you all putting up with my rant....

Cheers!

 

[koolaid_kid]

Congrats on the fix. The grease is an excellent solution and almost always works. AFA Fram, I won't use them on anything, they are well known for having issues.
My most common issue with oil changes is dropping things into the drain pan, usually the drain plug. But I have also lost the socket, the tiny nuts that hold the filter cover, etc. Nothing like fishing around in a pan of used oil for your parts. Once I was using the fancy drain pans you get at the auto parts, which just have a small hole in the center for the oil to drain into, and dropped an oil cover nut right in. Had to drain the entire contents into an open pan to find it and fish it out.

 

[bonanzadave]

dropping things into the drain pan

Kind of an airplane thing....

Find an old window screen to put over your pan. If any thing comes out with the oil that shouldnt you can see it and you wont drop anything in the pan. We cut oil filters open for inspection.

 

[hillntx]

I had a similar joyful experience changing the oil on my ST. To hit the high points: the replacement crush washer purchased from the dealer was the wrong size, the nylon plastic filter wrench provided by the PO was a piece of junk and prefered to fall apart than be turned by my ratchet, the strap wrench purchased at the last minute didn't have sufficient clearance to turn the filter which I should have known after jambing a screwdriver through the filter and not having enough clearance to turn it, and finally after getting the filter loose it was blocked by the center stand when trying to removing it. So my 20 minute first time for the bike oil change became a 2 hour ordeal. Live and learn...

 

[Steve]

... AFA Fram, I won't use them on anything, they are well known for having issues. ...

You know, I hear that on just about any forum I have ever visited. If they are such a bad product, how do they remain in business?

I used to use them exclusively on my 4-wheeled vehicles and never had any problems. At least, there were no problems that I noticed. If there was a problem, it was minor enough that it never caused any problems.

.

 

[koolaid_kid]

You know, I hear that on just about any forum I have ever visited. If they are such a bad product, how do they remain in business?

I used to use them exclusively on my 4-wheeled vehicles and never had any problems. At least, there were no problems that I noticed. If there was a problem, it was minor enough that it never caused any problems.

.

Because they are the cheapest. Not a put down to you or anyone who uses them, but they are. They are a high-volume, low price filter.
Thier biggest problem that I have seen reported is that they use a cardboard plug at the end of the filter. Apparently it is easily blown out, leaving you with unfiltered oil.
There is a site that tested lots'o'brands (the oil guy?) where he evaluates them, and it tested real near the bottom. He also disected the filters and found the quantity of filter material (it is folded around, but is one piece) to be very low and found the cardboard plug.

 

[TitanNeil]

I was fixin' up a GS500 this week (its sold) and was changinf oil, filter, plugs, etc. Same thing, start bike and blub blub blub, oil all over the floor. O-ring wasn't seated correctly.
When doing ANYTHING on a bike I keep a little magnet-on-a-stick with me. I can pick nuts and washers out of the drain pan (I drop them in every time) and nuts/washers/screws from inaccessible places on the bike itself when they inevitably fall there.