Checking Your Motorcycle Oil

Checking Your Motorcycle Oil

You should make this task a regular part of your motorcycle maintenance and life in general. Simply, Get to know your motorcycle engine. Understand your motorcycles consumption of oil. Hopefully it does not eat much oil between changes. But it is important that you check how much oil your motorcycle uses / eats up. Any change in oil consuption means that there is some kind of a change in the mechanical condition of your motorcycle. If your motorcycle starts to use or loose oil you should take steps to find out why ASAP.

Two-stroke motorcycle engines and motors are by design supposed to use oil. They usually come in 2 types. Some use a separate oil tank, which should be checked at each gas fill. And some mix the oil with the gasoline during fill-up. Be sure to check your motorcycle manufacturers owners manual to determine and fully understand the proper amount of oil and how to add it to your specific motorcycle.

Most manufacturer’s recommend that you check the engine oil when it's HOT (warm really). This means that the bike has been run for some time but not a long time. It also means that the engine has been shut off for a few minutes, giving the oil time to seep back down into the crankcase (unless your bike has a separate oil tank because then you want to check it before any seeps back down into the crankcase.

When checking motorcycle oil the motorcycle should be parked on a level surface to make sure that you get a correct reading. If your bike has a centerstand (it probably means that it is not a harley, buell or ducati) then the bike should usually be placed on a centerstnad for ease of checking. Please make sure that it is sitting level when you check the oil. This is a very important step as you might get a wrong reading. You may have to block one wheel up or weight the front tire to bring it down slightly when checking the level. On some bikes with centerstands the manufacturer recommends holding the bike upright and not using the centerstand and this must be done unless you can level the bike on the stand. Since it is awkward to hold the bike upright and see most sight glasses, it would pay to find another way.

On motorcycle models that are awkward to check oil, talk to another biker to find another way to check the fluid. Once you have propertly filled the bike place it on the centerstand and see how the level changes. Weigh the bike on one side or the other, or block a wheel up and see if you can duplicate the correct level reading. Once you have found how to do that, you are set to go.

If the bike doesn’t have a centerstand, then manufacturers are usually nice enough to design the bike so that it can be checked on the sidestand. If you have an owners manual, double ckeck to see if your bike has one of these exceptions.

There are 2 methods of checking motorcycle engine oil on most motorcycles, a dipstick or a sight glass.