I didn't want to say anything when I did me reintroduction last week as i didn't want to tempt fate, but last weekend I had to finally do a sprag  clutch clean and do it properly this time.

Now I've had the sprag out so many times I can to it inside a day almost blindfold.

Previously I had acquired a sprag and gear from a 98 k1200 and replaced mine as I thought it was knackered, turns out not to be the case.

I stripped the bike again last weekend, removed the sprag and it looked like it had been dipped in lithium grease it was so gummed up, it wasn't like that when I put it in.

Now the oil I'm using is a semi synthetic, I don't want to get in to an oil bashing discussion as I don't belive this is the oils fault and besides it was recommended by one of the big 3 classic BMW parts suppliers in the UK, it's Millers Classic 20w50 and I use it my K1200 with no issues. 

Anyway....

I think this was my problem, I cleaned the sprag, changed the filter and oil, but DID NOT do an engine flush, so the detergents in the semi synth did it for me and so struck sprag.

So this time sprag out, cleaned it, got my old man to whack it through his watchmakers steel ultra sonic cleaner for 15 mins, reassemble the bike, put engine flush through it as per instruction on the tin, drain oil, drop sump pan and clean that, change oil and filter.

Well, it's now been 80 miles, fingers crossed.

I must admit I use oil from Lidl bought lots at E15 for 5 litres, or my local Peugeot dealer as they are extremely competitive with Elf oils and selling them cheaper than Halfords oil. But I put in 15W40 or even 10W40 without any issues.

I think the thing with sprag clutches is that short runs or parking bike in cold leads to a lot of condensation inside the engine in that area so all sorts of stuff ends up in it. A few oil changes around 2-3000 mile intervals will help.

Yes, Short runs are unavoidable for me, I ride all year round but it's only 7 miles to work, I often go on giant detours just to get some miles in.

Given the climate and short runs I would figure a 10 or 15W40 oil is as much as you need and definitely nothing heavier over the winter. Its more likely to get into the sprag clutch area as well rather than leave a build up of mayonnaise etc inside it.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. 

I definitely won't be running the k100 over winter, it will be back in the shed before the salt hits the ground. And I'll just have to do 30 mile detours around the Lincolnshire countryside, 

it's a hard life.

Hopefully the problem has been fixed.I had similar problems a while back with my starter clutch. I used a diesel oil 5-40 Penrite and covered about 200ks it cleared up the problem but dont use it like normal oil it has ingredients suitable only for diesel engines. and as others have stated regular oil changes.

I'm with 92KK on the short runs in cold wearther theory. The condensation causes 
Mayonaisse like goo to form in the oil. A good long run where the bike gets hot enough to evaporate and vent it is essential in the winter.

Well pretty much to the mile, 100 miles later, sprag failed work today. No problem all last week.

So, @92KK 84WW Olaf, you reckon on a 10w40 for the summer??

Could you possibly have coolant leaking into the oil?

I used to run my old Honda 500-4 and the cars on 20W50 but oil technology has moved on so much. Air cooled engines in hot weather do get very hot and will get hotter than a liquid cooled engine so are built with bigger clearances to allow for that, but with liquid cooled engines temperature is much more controlled and you don't get the same extreme temperatures. Imagine air cooled engine in traffic at 35c, it gets hotter and hotter......liquid cooled the fan comes on and increases the cooling so the oil doesn't suffer as much heat.

On cars I found 20W50 is particularly likely to form mayonnaise, its thicker and in cold winter short runs won't do as good a job as the thinner oil that goes around quicker and splashes everywhere inside the engine.

I have a load of 10W40 and it goes in everything without a bother and I run everything to high mileages without running into oil burning issues. It goes in the K too and will be getting another oil change in a week or so....

Oil can be emotive but it's like tyres too in that it's a world wide forum so riding climates vary hugely and what suits some one here won't suit some one in say Nevada or Iceland. We don't really get much riding temperatures about 25C and when we do its not for long and we wont be riding flat out in it.

I go to France and don't feel inclined to use a different oil, just fresh oil. Riding won't be any different to home, just a little warmer.

Point-Seven-five wrote:Could you possibly have coolant leaking into the oil?

That's a thought and would cause a lot of mayonnaise......

It had crossed my mind, but I have no starting issues, no white emulsions in the oil and the water is clear.

Would the mayonnaise be black or white?

I've got a spare filter, if going to whack some cheap 10w40 in it for the week tonight.

JonnyHonda wrote:I've got a spare filter, if going to whack some cheap 10w40 in it for the week tonight.

The mayo will be white...ish

Actually while you are at it check the breather pipe from the top of the engine, its to the left between the coils and the air box.......just a thought. That breathes into the air intake, when running the engine takes the air out of the crankcases including all the moisture in it. A hole in that is not good, its also cheap to replace.

Dunno if you found this thread but if you can't be bothered reading all of it pick it up at post 74  and use carb cleaner first then WD to flush just before you drop that oil again.

Thanks 88, i have seen and read that thread.

I did get the bike bumped and when I got home it started as normal.

The last clean was blooming thoroughly done, the sludge from in the sprag was very much like a gloopy lithium grease, dark gray and yes the consistency of mayonnaise.

I'm gonna do the 10w40 oil change, check the breather, I doubt I'll get it finished tonight so it's the k1200gt tomorrow.

Same time same channel tomorrow, 

Thanks guys.

I reckon from that last post there's a heck of a lot of condensation inside your engine, particularly as that area takes a long time to warm up. It's all landing in the sprag clutch and then turning sticky. Mine has stuck a few time
not when it had fresh oil in so for now I change oil max 3,000 miles. Having paid €15 for 5 litre containers it doesn't trouble me.

Right, Oil changed over 10w40, and I checked the breather pipe and found the pipe clip was not as tight as I would have liked so removed and inspected, all good and refitted.

I also took a look at the pipe clips for the air box to the throttle bodies and found a couple loose, so they have been tightened up also.

I'll repost results and the next 100 milestone.

Just checked my shelf last night. Stacked up with 10W40.

OK so, 40 miles into the oil change and the sprag glitched this morning and failed at 4pm so forced a bump start.

I've got a 80 miles round trip to do tomorrow, do I
Do the run if it starts.
Or bump it if doesn't and do the run anyway?
Or just drag the 1200 out and use that.

Been using the K for a week, a full week at that with no issues and then without warning sprag failure.

I'm planning now on doing this https://www.k100-forum.com/t1209-starter-spinning-sprag-clutch-principle to at least get it started.

I've pretty much exhausted all the ideas I can find, now I have some of this seafoam stuff on order any one got any ideas on the best way to use the stuff.

Tried the crankcase cover off and the wd-40 trick, sort of, I didn't have wd-40 so I used PlusGas, figured anything along those lines would work.

Started up fine, like there is nothing wrong, so I've added a small amount of this SeaFoam stuff, I guess I'll take her out for a spin in the next day or two and see how it goes.

I've had starter spray clutch issues once or twice but I've often used diesel engine oils on my old petrol cars so I wasn't averse to using it periodically in the K bikes. Many on here advocate this approach and it has certainly seemed to work for me.
I read somewhere that the main concern about using a diesel engine  oil in a modern petrol engine is that they may use additives that are capable of degrading the catalytic converter in the exhaust system. If this is the case then it's perhaps  not a worry on cat free K bikes.

rawdonball wrote:I've had starter spray clutch issues once or twice but I've often used diesel engine oils on my old petrol cars so I wasn't averse to using it periodically in the K bikes. Many on here advocate this approach and it has certainly seemed to work for me.
I read somewhere that the main concern about using a diesel engine  oil in a modern petrol engine is that they may use additives that are capable of degrading the catalytic converter in the exhaust system. If this is the case then it's perhaps  not a worry on cat free K bikes.

Here in Europe we have very modern diesels and they are fitted with catalytic converters in the exhausts. If you want to use diesel oil, against the recommendations of BMW and the oil companies, then use the most modern diesel oil. That will be a 5w30 full synthetic to ACEA C3 spec. 
My car engine has the stuff in but no way would I put it into any of my bikes! But it is your bike, use what you want.

BobT wrote:

rawdonball wrote:I've had starter spray clutch issues once or twice but I've often used diesel engine oils on my old petrol cars so I wasn't averse to using it periodically in the K bikes. Many on here advocate this approach and it has certainly seemed to work for me.
I read somewhere that the main concern about using a diesel engine  oil in a modern petrol engine is that they may use additives that are capable of degrading the catalytic converter in the exhaust system. If this is the case then it's perhaps  not a worry on cat free K bikes.

Here in Europe we have very modern diesels and they are fitted with catalytic converters in the exhausts. If you want to use diesel oil, against the recommendations of BMW and the oil companies, then use the most modern diesel oil. That will be a 5w30 full synthetic to ACEA C3 spec. 
My car engine has the stuff in but no way would I put it into any of my bikes! But it is your bike, use what you want.

From what I've read, diesel oil is a good approach to resolving sprag clutch issues. I don't think the intention is to leave the diesel oil in there too long but just enough for it to circulate and dislodge some of the sludge that accumulates. Diesel is good for this because it is a detergent oil.
I think a good strategy to avoid sprag clutch issues in the first place is to run a synthetic or semi-synthetic oil as it too is a good detergent oil.

Diesel was a high detergent oil in the 1980's but here we are 40 years on and it is not. Diesels in that time have moved from low powered smokey old plant machinery to modern fast cars. Many of those cars are a much higher performance than their petrol brothers, hence the thinner fully synthetic oils with no detergent additives.

Wot BobT says. Sometime last year I was talking to a qualified (as in 'time served') diesel mechanic; his take on using 'diesel' oil is that it will flush the engine without knackering the seals. He also stated that it doesn't matter if you leave it in there.

First of all, I am no expert on diesels despite the fact I have worked on small(<1000cc) marine diesels for about 10 years. 

The metallurgy in diesels is the same as in petrol engines, and the operating temperatures are are pretty much the same.  Where I see a difference is that diesel fuel coats cylinder walls with more soot, and the compression is significantly higher so pressure loads on rod bearings and piston rings are higher. 

Bottom line is that lube oils for diesels need higher film strength and detergent properties.  Neither of these characteristics of diesel lube oil strike me as bad for a gasoline engine.  The only negative with diesel lube oil is that the cold viscosity is higher, thus not flowing as well in a cold engine resulting in more visco-resistance in cold engines, reducing fuel efficiency.  Once the engine has reached normal operating temperature the viscosity characteristics of the oils will be similar and fuel efficiency will likewise be the same.

One other factor of the higher cold viscosity is that the pressure drop through the lubrication system at low operating temperature can result in a lower oil pressure in bearings at the end of the lubrication circuit.  This can result in a slight increase in wear in bearings further from the oil pump.  This factor is present in both diesel and gasoline lube oils, and I am inclined to believe that the superior film strength of diesel lube oils may actually prevent some of this cold engine wear better than gasoline engine lube oil.

With the drive for higher diesel efficiency, more diesel lube oils, especially full synthetic, are being made with cold flow viscosity of 5W and some as low as 0W.  Personally, I don't worry about cold viscosity because I don't do any short run riding, so the amount of run time at low temperature is a very small percentage of the total run time of the engine.

In Europe, where 70%+ of cars are diesels,nearly all the diesel engine oil is 5w30. I used to see 15w40 around but that seems to have died out. European diesel cars have particulate filters fitted and that is why the latest spec of oils was developed.
If diesel oil was so good to put in a petrol engine then why would the manufacturers bother to make oil specifically for petrol engines. 
Anyone can put what they want in their engine, but why not ask your local BMW dealer if you should you diesel oil in you petrol engined bike, or write an email to the oil companies and ask them? You will get a far more informed answer than you will from some bloke on the internet.

But...there are quite a few oils out there that can be used in either petrol or diesel engines. But, as BobT says, the range of specifications for petrol and diesel engines is quite different.

Here's a well researched article about oil:

https://vfrworld.com/tex_vfr/tech/oil.htm

The Label on the Shell Rotella T6 that I use says it meets API service categories CH and SM(SM is a gasoline category):

https://motorcycleinfo.calsci.com/API.html

The first article is written by an American about US oils and is very different to the rest of the world. I would also question how old that article is. 
One should not forget that a country that has evolved with huge lazy engines will have a very different requirement to the rest of us with small more efficient engines, I know that the US has and is changing, but the Harley is a prime example, 1400cc with a 65 bhp power output compared with modern Euro bikes like a Ducati with 1200cc and 195 bhp power output.
Many of the oil make names in the US are not available outside the US, but that makes no difference as the viscosity and the specification (API etc) are the important factors. You will find that any make of oil of the same viscosity and spec is almost identical to any other. Look on the web and there will be studies to dispute that, but most of them are not independent as oil companies exist to make money and not make nice oil for you.

Useful though the articles might be for general understanding, many of the concerns raised for motorbikes are not relevant to the Ks, as we don't have a wet multi plate clutch or shared engine/gearbox oil.
For us, such issues can be disregarded. 
In that respect, we are closer to typical car requirements than typical bike requirements.

Bill

indian036 wrote:Useful though the articles might be for general understanding, many of the concerns raised for motorbikes are not relevant to the Ks, as we don't have a wet multi plate clutch or shared engine/gearbox oil.
For us, such issues can be disregarded. 
In that respect, we are closer to typical car requirements than typical bike requirements.

Bill

Totally agree there, but it is car oils that we are discussing as there was only one diesel bike as far as I am aware, and we talk about diesel oils.
My comparison above between Hardly Davidson and Ducati was a generalisation, I could have used any of the US car manufacturers and compared them with VW, Audi, Renault, Fiat etc.