The Ninja On Rotella T6

[OtisBlkR1]

Ok, im revisiting this post as its been a month and ive added 500+ miles to the little ninja, Im at a loss for words, the bike is back to buttery smooth shifts and it feels as good now as any other oil ive ever ran in the bike.. I just dont get it. At first it was good, then at 200 miles the shifting was getting clunky, now at 700 miles (ish) its very smooth again.. Ive never,EVER noticed anything like this before. The temps at night (and durring the day for that matter) are cooler.. i suppose this could play into it.

 

[ABerns]

Yeah, temps maybe? I believe you were in the 100s like we were here in IA, right? What were the temps when shifting was improved? Did you ride for long periods to make sure the oil was nice and hot?

 

[OtisBlkR1]

most of the time its 10 miles at a time, and yes it was HOT ! a month ago, now its in the upper 70's low 80's most of the time. so yes, the more i think about this i can see this being a real factor.

 

[BigCahuna]

To me it seems heat may have had something to do with the poor shift quality. Another thing might be ,after the change the two oils may have had a negative interaction.Causing the clutch to get grabbier, thus giving the feeling you would get when trying to shift without using the clutch. Then after all the old oil has been flushed from between the clutch plates, it smooths out. Did you adjust the clutch or cable since this all began?.,,

 

[mhdelano]

I'm not so sure ambient air temperature has anything to do with the oil viscosity, except at startup. The bike is water cooled, and I guarantee that the average oil temp is right around 100 degrees C no matter what the temperature is outside, assuming the bike has had time to warm up.

How hot do temps on earth even get? 40 C?

 

[OtisBlkR1]

Originally Posted By: BigCahuna
To me it seems heat may have had something to do with the poor shift quality. Another thing might be ,after the change the two oils may have had a negative interaction.Causing the clutch to get grabbier, thus giving the feeling you would get when trying to shift without using the clutch. Then after all the old oil has been flushed from between the clutch plates, it smooths out. Did you adjust the clutch or cable since this all began?.,,


No, nothing was adjusted. and the bike felt good the first 200 miles or so, than at or around 200 it started getting "grabby/clunky" this lasted a few hundred miles, and its now slowly gotten much better. Matter of fact if feels great, no different than any other high dollar oil ive used before... very weird