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andy2175m4 · #1 19th March 2021

Having only 1 can of oil in the garage, I put straight 50 wt Valvoline with zinc in the primary, but the clutch slips. is that slipping oil related ? I have put many different kinds of oil in many different bikes and never noticed any one of them allowed the clutch to slip.

One HD Dealer I asked recommends sportster primary lube, Sport Trans, that appears to be 80W90 gear oil, which makes sense. some posters have used ATF since it works well with clutch packs and lubes gears.

what is your take on primary oil ?

Do you think straight 50 wt with zinc would cause the clutch to slip ?

Edit: OOPPS... I went back and looked at oil package, is 50 wt motor oil with zinc, not 50 Wt Motorcycle oil...ok for oil tank, not for primary, I guess I will be cleaning out the entire primary and trans now with solvent to remove the zinc. arghhhhhhh

Hippysmack · #2 19th March 2021

Zinc didn't do it.
See this link in the Sportsterpedia.
http://sportsterpedia.com/doku.php/t...specifications

Steve9 · #3 19th March 2021

I don't think you have to do any cleaning.

I use Bel Ray sportster specific chaincase. With our bikes the primary and transmission share the same lube.

Zinc didn't do any harm.

With the big twins I kid about using chainsaw bar oil in the primary because it just lubes the chain and wets the clutch.

Read, and find what you are comfortable with., but I would not dis-assemble anything

wrkdWS6 · #4 19th March 2021

I run HD Formula + in the primary of all my bikes including my Ironhead. Seems to work well but I'm sure there's plenty of other suitable options also. I agree with above, I dont think you need to clean anything out with solvent, just drain it best you can IMO.

andy2175m4 · #5 19th March 2021

Having given it some thought, the easy thing to do is remove the primary, and clean all that in mild solvent and sand the steel clutch plates a bit with 220 or 400, to give them more grip.

I might sluce out the trans with a bottle of ATF to absorb the zinc loaded oil, will do a bench test to see how Mercon mixes with 50 wt oil. an unknown.

ATF won't hurt the trans a bit and might just displace the 50 wt oil. I may run ATF in it as a test after I clean out the 50 wt. Do you think ATF would be wet clutch friendly ? I liked the comment one guy had about how automatic transmisions have multiplate clutch packs that are similar to wet motorcycle clutches. good logic. is it true?

taking apart the primary is not a problem, I just get tired of running out of lock nut washers for the clutch hub and sprocket.

there are more oils out there than you can shake a stick at, on the HD forum, there is a blog on oils and one poster says that yes automotive oils with anti friction additives can cause wet clutch slipping, but I am baffled, for 50 eyars I have been using just plain old 10-30 or 10-40 car oil in countless motorcycles and never had this problem before, when I started riding there was no such thing as motorcycle oil, there was 30 wt HD, 30 wt ND, 10-40 for the winter, and 90 wt for the trans and rear end, that's about it, now there are hundreds of oil brands and thousands of oil products.

how did I end up grabbing the one motor oil at O'Riley's that would xxxx up my wet clutch ? just my dumb luck.

this is the first time I ever bought a bottle of motor oil with Zinc clearly on the label. not sure why I bought it, but that blog poster, he seemed to be making sense.

Tomcatt · #6 19th March 2021

Quote:

Originally Posted by andy2175m4

having given it some thought, the easy thing to do is remove the primary, and clean all that in solvent and sand the steel clutch plates a bit with 220 or 400, to give them more grip

taking primary is not a problem, I just get tired of running out of lock nut washers for the clutch....

Just run some Type F ATF in the primary for a while.

rejeanprimeau · #7 19th March 2021

Poor stator, flush and clean, as bad a running those diffential oil; bad bad bad for stator.

ATF is copper friendly: don't forget, automatic tranny are full of electrical gizmo.

andy2175m4 · #8 20th March 2021

yea I am going to remove the clutch, clean it with solvent, then flush the trans with Mercon V ATF and see how it goes. Mercon V is for Ford cars and trucks so its like an evolved type F.

andy2175m4 · #9 20th March 2021

I ran ATF in my Volvo 4 speed for 20 years, and in the Mustang T5 5 speed, works fine in car manual transmissions and automatics of course. the new mercon is about as thick as SAE 30. if it works in the sporty I will leave it in. Mercon V has been good to my crown vic, 155,000 miles on that trans.

Tomcatt · #10 20th March 2021

Quote:

Originally Posted by andy2175m4

yea I am going to remove the clutch, clean it with solvent, then flush the trans with Mercon V ATF and see how it goes. Mercon V is for Ford cars and trucks so its like an evolved type F.

It's not. Type F is unique in that it's for clutch packs you don't want slipping. B&M Trick Shift ATF would also be suitable.

Mercon V is the recommended ATF in my daily driver. With it the tranny shifts like a toilet flushing. With Redline Type F shifts aren't "crisp" but MUCH firmer/quicker than with Mercon V.