Burning oil

[M.T.]

Yeah, Stretch, that happened to me too at first- I should have noted that you need to tip the bike fairly slowly .

If I do the "slow tip" I get an accurate a reading as I ever do just by trying to hold the bike upright with one hand.

Of course, YMMV-

[clayrat]

my way to check oil level is to have bike on center stand and dip dipstick in with out screwing it in  ,oil just touches end of dip stick at correct level .I determened this level by originaly holding bike at correct level as per manual  and then ckecked it on center stand ..no more fuss

[TheMule]

Alrighty then.........

 A little history, when I purchased the bike (36200 miles) I rode the '01 home from Vegas. When I got home the bike was down a 3/4 of a quart (like a moron I neglected to check it when I got the bike so I don't know if it was full or not)  :roll: . I filled up the oil with some mobil 1 v-twin I had at the house. The motor and tranny seemed fine but the I rode it for about 250 miles and was down 3/4 quart again   . Then, following the recommendations here, at triumph rat, and in the service manual, I changed the oil and used mobil 4t. After the change I rode the bike for another 200 miles and checked the oil which was once again down about 3/4 of a quart . At this time I became concerned regarding the amount of oil she was going thru. This was the impetus for my previous posting in this thread. I topped the oil off and have since rode the old girl for nearly 600 miles without using a drop  :D . Oh, one other thing I did run a tank of seafoam thru the bike as well. So, the only conclusion my feeble mind can come to is that the bike really likes 4T and will not tolerate anything else? I read all the posts about the tigers using oil when products other than 4T were used but I'm still having a hard time believing the difference it makes.

Guess I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth,

[NortonCharlie]

You might get a dipstick for an late 02 or later, It is longer dropping the amount of oil needed for a change from 4.0 liters to about 3.2 liters.  It uses that .8 liters pretty quick then levels off a bit.

[EvilBetty]

Ok, back to the Oil Consumption...

I'm going through Mobil 1 4T like crazy.  In 2000 miles I think I've had to add 3 quarts.  I have to add some to get it back on the stick every fuel up it seems.

The bike is running fine (well not exactly but it's unrelated).  When I did the valve shims, there was a little oil in the air box, and signs that looked to me like oil had been going into the #3 TB.  I changed the breather seal in the stator case, but it's still been sucking oil.  When I pulled the tank and air box for the TB balance last week, I didn't notice any oil in the air box, and the TB's looked evenly tarnished.  My new (was a demo unit) Quill muffler has got a good coat of black in it but I think it did when I installed it too.

It smokes a little bit when I first start it but I've never seen it when I'm ridding it, nor has anyone riding behind me.

I'm kinda at a loss...

If my valves all shimmed up correctly, can it still possibly be a valve issue?

If there is somewhere I can start at home great, otherwise I'm going to have to take it to the dealer.  It drives me nuts having this kind of problem.

[iansoady]

If my valves all shimmed up correctly, can it still possibly be a valve issue?

Can't see why clearances could affect it, but bad valve stem seals could.

[EvilBetty]

Without tearing into the head is there a way to determine a bad valve seal?

[iansoady]

Usually you get blue smoke on the overrun ie when there's a low pressure in the cylinders pulling oil through the seals.  Or when you open the throttle again after slowing down.

No way of visually checking other than dismantling AFAIK.

[EvilBetty]

I'm not getting anything like that.  I'm not even smelling a hit of oil either when warming it up in the garage or in traffic with a tail wind, and I've got a very sensitive nose.

So if I pop the breather hose from the stator cover and see oil misting out of it there, that indicates a bad breather seal?

[sanjoh]

So if I pop the breather hose from the stator cover and see oil misting out of it there, that indicates a bad breather seal?

Or low cylinder compression

[Bixxer Bob]

Going off at a tangent only slightly, is your gearbox sprocket oil seal ok EB?

Working on the theory that if you're not burning it, you must be leaking it somewhere....

[EvilBetty]

I don't even know what / where that is...  :oops:

[EvilBetty]

Ok back to this again, again...

I popped the breather hose off the other day and wiped it with my finger.  Oil all over it and a drip dropped off to the ground.  This was after a 30 minute ride.  I started the bike back up and rubber banded a napkin over the breather outlet, and ran the bike for a minute or so, revved it a couple times.  Nothing on the napkin? :?

I haven't checked the air box yet, but I'm betting this might be to blame for my weird cold start up problems.  If I start the bike up after it's sat all night, it will idle fine for a second, then gag on itself for a few seconds before idling fine again.  Once it's died while doing this.  If I shut it right back off and either start it right away or wait 30 minutes and start it up, it starts fine.

I'm wondering if oil is not blowing up through the breather, into the air box, and draining into cyl #3?

Someone said that they have been inside their stator covers and there wasn't a drop of oil in it.  Where would this oil be coming from then?  I want to take it in to get it fixed but I don't want to be without my bike for weeks.  I was going to have them pre-order the breather seal and stator cover gasket, and any other parts they will need.

I'm going to go by and get the dealer's impression tomorrow but as always this group is much more helpful :)

[Timbox2]

Having read a few of these instances I was readying myself to expect the worse, well, Ive done 1500 miles now in 19 days and the bike doesn't appear to have used any oil whatsoever, in fact it looks like the dealer actually overfilled a bit, but the level has stayed the same anyway.

[EvilBetty]

Awesome!  Hope it stays that way!

I at first thought mine was not using after the last change but after I got down to Jasper it was in fact low again, and has been ever since after a tank of gas... :(