Maintenance intervals: Break in Oil changes & Chain lube

[oldqwerty]

Originally Posted by AZRider

You can't go wrong if you choose an oil with the rating JASO-MA. It's specifically designed for motorcycles with wet clutches, like our RX-3. The latest iteration is JASO-MA2 and you'll find that on motorcycle specific brands, but you'll be OK using Rotella car oil that has the JASO rating.

Rotella is not car oil. Any oil for modern cars will quickly waste your cam and followers and trash your clutch. Rotella is commercial truck oil. Think Freightliner and Kenworth and Smokey and the Bandit. Rotella is about the best dino oil on the market for commercial trucks (works great in smaller diesel trucks, too!). When it comes to commercial motor oils, Rotella is a darn good 10. Yup, 10 different Rotella engine oils are available. Better get the right one because the wrong choice can and will put your motorcycle at high risk of failure.

Spudrider, total miles don't mean much after how many rebuilds? Really, get 50k+ out of an original top end, with nothing but routine maintenance, only to allow someone who should know better borrow the bike and run it down the highway for three days until it locked up from the oil pumping out. Poor Tdub. I know of three other TWs that went over 50k on their original parts, nothing changed except carb jets and spark plugs. All three did break in with Valvoline, long lives with Mobil 1, Royal Purple, or Amsoil (all ester based synthetics). Two are still going since there owners know how to say "NO!" One got XT225 engine internal and trans when the original started that darned base gasket leak at 62K.

I've rebuilt a couple dozen small Yamahas at 35-45k that were treated to the correct Rotellas and or Delos, and suffered loose valve guides, trashed cam races in the head, and significant ring groove in the cylinder, but not much evidence of excessive wear on the cam lobes, followers, valve stem ends, or adjusting screws. As far as dino oils go, the correct Rotellas and Delos are just as good as the name brand motorcycle specific dinos, and far exceed the off brands. But they are not synthetics and suffer the same shearing of their additives in the transmission and associated degradation of protection as any other dino oil.

Walmart has Valvoline 4-Stroke in quarts for about the same price per volume as Rotella T3 in gallons. I checked today stocking up for my Cyclone's break in.