Oil dipstick w/temp gauge

Just checking in to see if there are any recommended oil dipsticks with integrated oil thermometers for '10 Grisos.

Or if there's a particular thread-pitch I'll need to buy one from a "big box" bike shop.

Gotta get the bike warm in the mornings!

Thanks!

NBG

It won't get warm idling. You'll maybe overheat the top end but unless the weather is hot it'll take forever to get the oil warm. Press the button and go.

What about the whole "it needs to warm up to avoid smegma" discussion?

That means "it has to warm up before you park it" - i.e. if you don't ride it long enough to get the motor hot enough to burn off any water vapor then you might end up with the smegmas This is a problem after you get there, not before you leave.

A bike will warm up faster under load than idling anyways - so start it up, put your glove and helmet on if you want to give it a bit of time, and then ride away. Maybe avoid WOT for a few miles

It needs to get HOT! Warming it up at a standstill will simply get the metal bits hot, fairly slowly. By riding it you make it work. That creates more heat and this is removed by the oil so the oil heats up quicker.

The important thing is to regularly get the engine hot and the oil up to 100*C or close to. Longer trips and work it hard.

Ah! [:headslap:] Now I get it!  

Unfortunately, long morning rides aren't a reality in my area.  Traffic is horrible around where I live, and my commute is only 9 miles.  And the SF Bay Area is kind of known for its fog.

Or put another way: 15 minutes by bike, 40 minutes by car.    

But, no oil probe needed.  Got it.

Thanks!

Oh, but to answer your original question? I bought my oil temp stick from MG Cycle. While there are a host of them available on fleabay and the like which are cheaper and may be every bit as good the ones sold by MG, at least at the time I bought mine, were German made and very accurate. Whether some of the cheap knock-offs would be as good is open to question. Let's face it though a thermometer is hardly a high-tech piece of equipment but if you need accuracy you need accuracy.

Certainly the results I've observed are interesting and worrying. Whilst cold oil will lubricate as well as hot, (At least it will if it has a decent baseline viscosity.) the fact that the engine oil isn't getting to above 80*C, even in the dry, when the ambient temperature is 6*C or less, and if it is wet it struggles to break the 60*C mark is worrying.

The problem is exacerbated by the engine temperature correction factor which, in these circumstances, means that the mixture is greatly enrichened in these conditions and Mark has I believe been very edgy about playing with these as small changes make a BIG difference. Too much fuel makes for a cooler and less efficient burn and more H2O in the spent and blow-by gasses. This will further lead to greater quantities of water in the oil which in turn won't be expelled.

Why the factory chose to delete the oil thermostat on the 8V is anybody's guess. Cost would probably of been a consideration but perhaps over-cooling was simply never something that was considered. Perhaps it was assumed that because the ECU was going to trim the mixture super-lean enough heat would be produced for the cooler to always be needed? There are so many questions we simply don't have the answers to!

I do know that as soon as I'm back from holiday and riding my bike again I'll be masking off the cooler until the warmer weather returns. Having a thermometer does at least mean I can monitor my oil temperature so if it does start getting hotter than I like I can un mask it!

Ideally one could fit a thermostat. Problem is most of these start opening at 60*C and are fully open at 85*C! While it means the oil will heat up,quicker I still want it hotter than that before the cooler comes into play. Instead I think I'll take the Luddite approach and just build an adjustable baffle I can move manually to regulate air flow through the cooler. While it may not be *Ideal* it will be lighter and a lot less complex and expensive than developing a proper thermostatically controlled system.

Pete

What about something like the covers they put over the front end radiators of long-haul diesel trucks in the winter? Then peel back a corner or a layer as the day/engine warms up. 2 layers of something that restrict airflow, say 70-30 or 50-50, would work wouldn't it?

Mark, sounds like a good idea. What sort of temps are talking about for your commute? Does the bike get up to temp in high summer on your commute, or is it mainly a cool weather/rain issue?

Today I was testing a map and the ambient temp was 8 degrees C. I had a bugger of a time getting the engine up to 100. 70 mph in second was required.

70mph in 2nd?!?
Make that bitch scream your name!!

We tend to have a Mediterranean climate.  Summer mornings range from 55*-65*F [13*-18*C], afternoons range from 85*-95*F [29*-35*C], with some +100*F [38*C] days to keep things interesting.  The freeway tends to be warmer because of all the cars and stored heat from the day.

Morning temps and dew points tend to be very close, so we get a lot of fog that usually burns off as the day progresses.

Winter mornings range from 35*-45*F [1.7*-7*C], with the days in the mid-60s [high teens C], rarely getting above 75*F [24*C].  Last winter, mornings were especially cold [24*F; -4*C].

In order to give you good oil temp numbers, I'll have to spring for a dipstick thermometer.  [Yes, the Wife thought that was...hilarious.    ]  I don't get up to speed in the mornings, but I try to keep the RPMs above 4500 in 1-3 gear.

Beetle's numbers have to be metric. Otherwise, when the Aussies say "flog it" they must really mean it!   

I can't remember the last time I FAILED to hit redline in 1st and 2nd when I have left a stop.
But there must have been a cop nearby.

DM

You'd have a coronary if you saw they way I ride my GRiSO. It's a machine to be ridden and I bloody well ride it. Not metric. 70 miles per hour.

Now, buy that dipstick.

Most of the time I ride my bike quite gently, that's partly because of where I live and the very high number of highway patrol orificers who stalk the King's Highway but as Mark says, they are a machine built to be ridden! The rev limiter is set very conservatively, (I believe Mark's maps universally have the limiter raised by 500RPM over standard and nobody so far had run a bearing or thrown a leg out of bed.) you can bounce it off it all day if you so desire. Certainly when the 'Red Mist' descends I have no qualms about giving mine a solid caning!

Warm it up as best you can, you obviously don't flog it to the rev limiter from cold! But there is no need to treat it like three hundred year old Steuben Crystal, in fact doing so is counter productive.

What I'm thinking of for a baffle is probably some form of slotted plate with another plate behind it that can be slid too and fro to occlude the slots. Whether it would be best to do this on the entry side of the carrier/Venturi housing or the exit side I'm not sure? Perhaps both for full adjustability? I have a spare oil cooler housing I can use for mock-ups, it shouldn't be too difficult. I can get the baffles lazer cut in 1mm stainless to try and keep the weight down rTher than the 2mm plate I use for sloppage sheets. Perhaps I could even see what it would cost to have them done in Titanium! That would give wood to all the bling-worshippers!

Pete

Pete, why not use aluminium, if you can give me a sketch of what you want, I can do an Autocad drawing and a DXF file, so you can water jet / laser cut the plates.

Just a thought.

Pete Roper wrote:

What I'm thinking of for a baffle is probably some form of slotted plate with another plate behind it that can be slid too and fro to occlude the slots. Whether it would be best to do this on the entry side of the carrier/Venturi housing or the exit side I'm not sure? Perhaps both for full adjustability? I have a spare oil cooler housing I can use for mock-ups, it shouldn't be too difficult. I can get the baffles lazer cut in 1mm stainless to try and keep the weight down rTher than the 2mm plate I use for sloppage sheets. Perhaps I could even see what it would cost to have them done in Titanium! That would give wood to all the bling-worshippers!

Pete

I like the idea of placing a larger outlet on the baffle; I think the resulting venturi effect would provide plenty of cooling while maintaining laminar airflow over the baffle.