- Wed Jan 07, 2015 1:53 pm
#43216
Tim, this bike was chucking excess oil out of the breather, due to me fitting the piston rings incorrectly. This was discovered by Bullet Whisperer when he had the engine in for some tuning a while ago. Once it's back in the frame and running (with the rings now fitted correctly) I would hope there's a lot less. BW also opened out the scavenge side oilways in the pre-AVL crankcase to allow the high volume AVL gear pump to drain the sump quicker on start-up (something that hadn't occured to me with the hybrid engine). My Electra-X DOES wet-sump, but as all's well with the pumps and oilways you'd never realise it.
The point of using the drip-feed lubricator as a catch can was partly cosmetic/bling and part practical, as being a drip feed, it could be used for chain lube purposes much as the duckbill, only in a more controlable fashion. With (hopefully) a more moderate oily vapour output this should now be practical. There's nothing to stop me fitting short duck bill valve inside the drip feed intead of the admittedly clunky brass non-return valve that's in the pipe from the crankcase breather.
AS for oil tank top vents, my Electra-X has this. It did the blocked breather pipe/oil all over the garage floor thing quite early on, so after some experiments I just had a piece of 90 degree breather hose running off the top of the tank with a duck bill on the end over the top of the rear chain just behind the gearbox sprocket. This worked fine just so long as I didn't overfill the oil or ride enthusiastically, either of which would just make a mess of the back of the bike. The current arrangment is a long fairly straight bit of pipe exiting at the back of the bike, connected to the 90 dgree breather hose bend via an alloy n/r valve. This works in that it keeps the back end of the bike clean, but it does dribble mayo when parked. More work needed,perhaps.
A.
The point of using the drip-feed lubricator as a catch can was partly cosmetic/bling and part practical, as being a drip feed, it could be used for chain lube purposes much as the duckbill, only in a more controlable fashion. With (hopefully) a more moderate oily vapour output this should now be practical. There's nothing to stop me fitting short duck bill valve inside the drip feed intead of the admittedly clunky brass non-return valve that's in the pipe from the crankcase breather.
AS for oil tank top vents, my Electra-X has this. It did the blocked breather pipe/oil all over the garage floor thing quite early on, so after some experiments I just had a piece of 90 degree breather hose running off the top of the tank with a duck bill on the end over the top of the rear chain just behind the gearbox sprocket. This worked fine just so long as I didn't overfill the oil or ride enthusiastically, either of which would just make a mess of the back of the bike. The current arrangment is a long fairly straight bit of pipe exiting at the back of the bike, connected to the 90 dgree breather hose bend via an alloy n/r valve. This works in that it keeps the back end of the bike clean, but it does dribble mayo when parked. More work needed,perhaps.
A.
