Very high oil consumption :(

[Dark Skies]

Dark Skies, How did you measure the oil consumption and was it just the once and was the oil measured when filling?
I have seen a possible air lock in the filter chamber and clutch plates. there are many nooks and crannies where oil take a long time to reach, causing the oil level to look ok and possible be down about a litre.
The fact that it's not blowing smoke and it is assumed, there are no obvious leaks, leads me to think, that there was insufficient oil put in after the major overhaul. Hence, I think you will be lucky and oil level will not continue to drop after another fill.

If one or the other, top and second ring were put in the wrong way round, which is what I first thought was the problem, you would definitely see smoke.
I also thought maybe the sump oil ring must be limiting the oil going to the motor from the filter chamber and just returning to the sump... This also would not use oil or cause oil consumption. Is it getting into the air filter?
RegardZ.

When I came to check the oil it took 1 and half bottles of oil - the level was right at the Danger Will Robinson mark on the window. I'm certain about having got all the rings the right way up - I agonized over making sure they were right at the time - even using a vernier caliper to space the upper and lower expander rings the same distance from front centre. I took my time on that - manual in hand.

I have K&N filters - and an S&B oil breather filter where the tube would normally fit onto the bottom of the air filter box.

As luck would have it I had run out of rum (that's not the lucky part - I hate it when that happens) and made a run down to Tesco. I checked their rather pointless car section - all three shelves of tat and ... they have mineral oil for petrol engines in 10W/40 for nine quid for four litres. At that price it's got to be well crap - so I'll do an oil and filter change tomorrow and see if that helps with running the engine in a bit better.

[Pigford]

Sure you didn't top the motor up with your RUM

[Dark Skies]

:shock: Sure you didn't top the motor up with your RUM

That would NEVER happen.

[Pigford]

[Dark Skies]

http://www.morrislubricants.co.uk/

Pretty sure these do a mineral and even a special running in oil.
Asda do cheapo oils look for Carplan,sell that in Jet statiions...

Cheers. Some useful stuff there for my Landy!

[Rich]

If I remember right Morris do glaze busting oil as well which was highly recommended by SEP when last I was in there chatting.

[Dark Skies]

If I remember right Morris do glaze busting oil as well which was highly recommended by SEP when last I was in there chatting.

Worth knowing. Hopefully it won't come to that. But it's worth bearing in mind.

[Garn 1]

Dark Skies, I'm interested to know if you have solved your problem.. Or has it gone away?
RegardZ.

[Dark Skies]

Dark Skies, I'm interested to know if you have solved your problem.. Or has it gone away?
RegardZ.

I've changed the oil filter and oil for Tesco mineral oil 10W/40. Only ran the bike about twenty miles so far so too early to tell yet. I guessI'll have some idea by the time I've done a couple of hundred miles. I'll post an update when I get there.

[Dark Skies]

Well things are still very dire. Lots of white smoke on starting from cold. Quick blat down the A34 and the smoke clears. Pull up by the side of the road and blip the throttle and there's a bit of black soot (bit rich perhaps as it's got K&Ns and a jet kit).

But ... it's still using a hell of a lot of oil. I topped up the oil to the max level and did about thirty miles and the level had dropped to about half way between max and min. There are no external leaks from the casings or the breather.

So I bought a compression gauge off Ebay and did some testing.

From cold the compression results (in PSI) are:

1 - 110
2 - 115
3 - 120
4 - 130


When hot:

1 - 115
2 - 100
3 - 120
4 - 120

Some unexpected results on cylinders 2 and 4.

ALL are well down on what they should be - off the top of my head around something like 150 psi minimum and around 180 psi max (or in that ballpark).

They are all fairly close together though. I was kind of hoping for something more dramtic on one cylinder that might indicate a broken ring. But as they're so close together I'm thinking either the rebore wasn't done too well (very unlikely as these guys have been in the business since 1914 - everyone uses them around here) or bore glazing.

I've no frame of reference - I've never suffered bore glazing before - all my rebuilds have gone well in the past. I'm throwing that open to the forum for those that have.

My next problem is I've now nowhere to strip the engine down and have a good look at the problem - my Land Rover restoration has packed out my garage.

I'm probably going to have to leave this with a bike shop to fix. What's the usual procedure for glazing? Is it just a matter of pulling the barrel off and running a glaze-buster down it or will it need re-honing? And does anything need to be done with the existing rings - or can they just be given a squirt of carb cleaner to get any lacquer off?

[z1bman]

have you checked the breather + the plate under the cover

[Dark Skies]

have you checked the breather + the plate under the cover

Originally my bike had the Californian smog emissions system with the elaborate pipework, cam cover and filter that returned to the air filter box. I ditched all that and put on a standard Z1000J cam cover and put one of those little K&N style breather filters on. There is no plate under the cover on that. But there's no oil leaking from that - although I've not removed it to check. I'd have thought if it were blocked the internal compression would have blown it off or ruptured gaskets elsewhere.

[DavidZ1R]

Was in z power on friday reserching a mod on the z250 cam cover, while Dave was thumbing through all the kawasaki mods and recalls, he pointed out one fault that was kept quiet at the time, it was on a 1000cc engine, cant quite be sure which, but the problem on this engine the cylinder liners were machined first then fitted into the blocks, then when the engine became hot the liners would slightly oval, which caused massive oil consumption, kept quiet at the time, many engines were delayed on serv ices while the blocks where quickly re machined, could be you have one that was not done?

[Pigford]

Was in z power on friday reserching a mod on the z250 cam cover, while Dave was thumbing through all the kawasaki mods and recalls, he pointed out one fault that was kept quiet at the time, it was on a 1000cc engine, cant quite be sure which, but the problem on this engine the cylinder liners were machined first then fitted into the blocks, then when the engine became hot the liners would slightly oval, which caused massive oil consumption, kept quiet at the time, many engines were delayed on serv ices while the blocks where quickly re machined, could be you have one that was not done?

Very common (& generally well know) fault with early J motors

OK if bikes had a re-bore tho'

[DavidZ1R]

Was in z power on friday reserching a mod on the z250 cam cover, while Dave was thumbing through all the kawasaki mods and recalls, he pointed out one fault that was kept quiet at the time, it was on a 1000cc engine, cant quite be sure which, but the problem on this engine the cylinder liners were machined first then fitted into the blocks, then when the engine became hot the liners would slightly oval, which caused massive oil consumption, kept quiet at the time, many engines were delayed on serv ices while the blocks where quickly re machined, could be you have one that was not done?

Very common (& generally well know) fault with early J motors

OK if bikes had a re-bore tho'

Well it was news to me