Oil Change: Castrol, Putoline or Shell?

[andrewsmith]

I'm about to give the bike a freshen up after the hard winter living undercover in my yard.

I'm just wondering whats the best 10W/ 40 for the 2000 650's?/
What everyone else is using?

and; how hard is it to do!

Go Hein Gericke and get 4l of their semi synthetic, and you'll get a free oil filter

15 mins. Job done.

[Paul the 6th]

Oil drain can = http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/s...m_vc=IOV4PDPZ1

Drip tray = http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/s...egoryId_165469

Place can under the sump bolt, undo the sump bolt slowly til you feel the bolt is completely unthreaded, pull bolt away quickly and allow oil to drain... once oil has slowed to a drip it's time to get onto the oil filter. Someone sold me an oil filter cup wrench type thing on here but I used it for the first time last week - turns out this cup was out of shape and didn't help get the filter off at all..

Some people recommend a chain wrench but I didn't have one so ended up forcing a screwdriver through it (carefully!) and twisting it off like that... it wasn't half tight on!

Replace the sump bolt, then apply oil to the rubber gasket around the top of the filter to ensure a good seal (I even filled the filter half full of oil to help circulation quicker when refilled with new oil). Pour in about 2 litres of oil then top it up slowly and keep checking to see when you've reached the full level.

When you reach the full level, start the engine for 5-10 seconds to get it circulating, then kill it and check the level again. It *should* have dropped so top it up and start the engine again. once the level is consistent, check to make sure everything is tight/there are no leaks, start it up and let it run to full temperature. Check the oil level again and take it for a test ride. Keep an eye on it for the next few days just incase it drops without you realising

Make sure you DON'T over fill it or you'll end up getting false neutrals & crap gear changes amongst other symptoms.

Hope this helps

[Paul the 6th]

Oh and as for oil & filter, I always go for genuine suzuki parts (filter) just out of suspiscion and oil like castrol racing. If it's good enough for race teams then it should be more than adequate for my girly road riding

i think i read in the manual that you have to tighten the oil filter a full 2.5 turns with the tool after its hand tight,which seems an awful lot. is this correct, always used to be as tight as you could get it by hand on my other bikes and cars! what happens if you dont tighten this much?

Originally Posted by Paul the 6th

Oh and as for oil & filter, I always go for genuine suzuki parts (filter) just out of suspiscion and oil like castrol racing. If it's good enough for race teams then it should be more than adequate for my girly road riding

+1. It might seem more expensive, but at the end of the day your engine oil costs less per mile used than petrol. Use good stuff, castrol semi synthetic 10w 40 motorcycle oil (not car oil!), or if you feel a bit posh today, fully synthetic Genuine filters caaaan be a bit expensive, I've never had any problems with the champion filters from halfords, but it is nicer knowing a genuine one is on there

oil change isnt hard to do, just dont over-tighten the sump bolt and get a new crush washer so you dont have an increased risk of seepage

Originally Posted by demonicus

i think i read in the manual that you have to tighten the oil filter a full 2.5 turns with the tool after its hand tight,which seems an awful lot. is this correct, always used to be as tight as you could get it by hand on my other bikes and cars! what happens if you dont tighten this much?

I've always done mine hand tight, never had a problem. I know spannerman does them as tight as the book says. I guess the danger is the oil pressure, coupled with engine vibrations, could cause the oil filter to undo itself if its not on there tighter than a tight thing. Always smear a little bit of oil around the rubber O-ring on the filter

[andrewsmith]

Cheers

I was thinking castol after a few good reviews of it!
Whats the obvious signs of the current oil being going a bit 'naff'?

[Paul the 6th]

well apart from running like crap it's more about the wear and tear on your engine. Old nackered oil is black as fireback, where as new oil is nice and golden They recommend oil changes every 4 thousand miles or so but if I remember rightly, someone on here managed to get a hundred and silly thousand miles out of their engine by doing it every 2-3k miles.

Think of oil like blood in your body. It acts as a lubricant, cleaning agent, coolant and many other jobs in the engine, so if it's not upto scratch then at best, your engine won't be on top form. At worst, you could be doing some real damage to it

[andrewsmith]

Originally Posted by Alpinestarhero

+1. It might seem more expensive, but at the end of the day your engine oil costs less per mile used than petrol. Use good stuff, castrol semi synthetic 10w 40 motorcycle oil (not car oil!), or if you feel a bit posh today, fully synthetic Genuine filters caaaan be a bit expensive, I've never had any problems with the champion filters from halfords, but it is nicer knowing a genuine one is on there

oil change isnt hard to do, just dont over-tighten the sump bolt and get a new crush washer so you dont have an increased risk of seepage

I'm not that posh the semi will do. The last bike was run on shell fully synth through the dealer doing the oil change with it.

Thanks Aplinestar didn't think about that!. I'm picking up the filter today i'll get the washer at the same time