Started bike without oil

Pulled the stupidest stunt I've ever done in my life after 51 years of wrenching on bikes. Details not important, but started my bike without any oil in it and ran it for about 30-45 seconds. During this time I put it into and out of 1st gear a couple times, and ran it mostly at idle before I realized my error and quickly shut it off.
I filled it with oil after this, ran it for five minutes. Dumped the new oil and refilled again. I checked my magnetic drain plug and it showed no metal particles. The bike seems to sound fine while running with no evident problems.
What are the chances I've done some long term damage to the motor?
The chance that any significant damage happened -- anything you'd ever notice -- is vanishingly slim. The fact that you stayed at an idle and it was less than minute . . . I've seen motors subjected to a lot worse than that and they survived just fine.

Ride it, don't worry about it.
 
With modern oils film strength i beleive you will be ok. Plain bearings bored into an aluminum case may have galled, (like a foreign overhead cam engine), if it ran much longer. But honestly after a winter storage id bet it take 30 -45 sec to get to oil into the head anyways.
 
Depends on the oil used previously is my answer.

My friend loaded his race machine in the truck, took it to the track, rode it to the start line. Fired up and raced about a lap and a half of a cross country race before the engine failed (12-15 miles). Brought it here like I don't know what happened. I assumed just a race related failure and started tearing it apart to see if there was anything to be salvaged from it. Once I got the head and jug off, I grabbed a really long phillips screwdriver and stuck it down in to the bottom of the case and pulled it out like a dipstick.

He turned about 12 shades of green when he saw the little dab of oil on the very tip. Just the residual of the Mobil 1 he had drained out and not replaced. The tip off for me was the very blue and very seized wrist pin, which broke the piston and bent the rod,

I am certain your Suzuki will be just fine. But this is why quality film strength and oil that clings to parts is important. Provides day to day protection at startup. Provides a little extra protection if something goes wrong (like the water outlet breaking on my daughters car) or you have a one minute brain lapse like starting without refilling the oil.
 
Checklists! I wrote my checklists on the wall in the garage, and one of them is pre-startup checks for oil changes... I don't trust myself when I'm in that euphoric "oil change" state of mind 😁
 
Checklists! I wrote my checklists on the wall in the garage, and one of them is pre-startup checks for oil changes... I don't trust myself when I'm in that euphoric "oil change" state of mind 😁
Or simply put a sticky note on the bike somewhere highly visible that says "NO OIL". I've used that trick on some of my vehicles where I let the oil drain all night and finished the oil & filter change the next morning.
 
Back
Top