which oil - Harley Forum

caretired · #1 09-23-2009, 03:46 PM

have a 96 flhpi bought resently, it has 71000 miles and still runs strong.
should i use syn.oil or stay with regular 20-50 hd oil?
bought from dealer in az. had reg. oil put in when i bought it.
was thinking about useing mobil syn. motorcycle oil.
new to forum, from so. cal. just retired, 62 y.o.

shovelmike · #2 09-23-2009, 06:25 PM

Welcome to the forum, caretired. Neither oil will hurt your bike, if there are any leaks or oil consumption the synthetic will get expensive. Being old fashioned and a tightwad I have continued to favor the old petroleum based oil.

caretired · #3 09-23-2009, 06:47 PM

sky does have a pretty smile, take care of yourself so youll be there for her.

frisco-rigid · #4 09-23-2009, 07:37 PM

Hi CA

Everybody has their fav oil and anectodal reasons why and like ShovelMike, I will always use old-style oil..
However, there is only one trained educated Oil Pro on this site that actually knows what he's talking about-- BluesFan.. Maybe he'll comment to you..

In the meantime here are a couple sites that might give you a wee info about oil..
In this first the print is very small but you can enlarge it by pressing ctrl and rolling the mouse wheel forward..

http://www.sportster.org/tech/Oiland...Motorcycle.pdf

Here is the other..

Oil FAQ

and

Testing Motorcycle Oil

flh8074 · #5 10-29-2009, 01:05 AM

I have a '93 Heritage with 45,000 miles. It has had nothing but Harley 20w-50 since new. It uses very little oil between changes (3,000 mi.) I think I'd be for continuing with the dino.... i.e. if it ain't broke don't fix it. However, for as many people in this forum, there's probably that many opinions on oil!

harold · #6 11-06-2009, 05:11 PM

after trying many , it seems the 05 love's the regular dino oil and so it gets it.
castrol 20-50 and change around 2500-3000 mi. the primary is bel ray and its happy, and the tranny is bel ray and is happy. the primary also seems to like spectro. of these oil's ive tried hd oil, mobile oil, royal purple- hauls ass- but i keep remembering the ww ii sub movies and thining the gear case oil , plus the royal purple runs the engine noisy-so.
rev tech- primary like's, engine can take or leave it.
there is also kendal , but the hippies and bikers , public in general say the older bike's pre 80's like the kendal - have never tried it.

like's it defined as - the bike runs quiet and smooth
take it or leave it , defined as - runs quiet for a while then squeall's like a pig , clicks like a dolphin.

hipppies and public i define as the older guys who really are a wealth of information, they have a good hold on the spirit of the bike, (the idiosyncracies ) of the harleys and actually convinced me of how far i can modify my bike w/o going down the find the week part trail.

kempomark · #7 11-13-2009, 12:30 PM

Personally I am in the same boat you are. My bike has over 70K on it. I have a very slow and small base leak on my aft cylinder/left side. I want to go with Amsoil in all my holes. I've read nothing but good stuff about that oil. I don't want to put it in now til I get that cylinder off and get the base resealed. Hate to waste money on good oil. I am told Royal Purple does a pretty good job too. Again, it's not cheap.

Humble bow,

Kempo