TOPIC:

Your bro sounds like me , shouldn't be left alone with anything sharp! . PS nice clean fingers , have you just had a bath

Anyone ever measured the oil pressure at idle? If the high value is 28 psi @ 4000 rpm, then the low value should be around 10-12 psi at idle? I don't think I've ever seen an engine run at a lower pressure than 10 at idle except a splash lubricated small engine.

This might even be a good "topic" for discussion all alone. (Obviously for reference material down the road) Can't believe Kawasaki doesn't include that number in the specs.

charlie9670 wrote: Your bro sounds like me , shouldn't be left alone with anything sharp! . PS nice clean fingers , have you just had a bath

Haha - yes he is a dangerous man with anything sharp

I've started wearing disposable gloves when I'm working on my bikes now - saves a lot of scrubbing up afterwards and a little less awkward for when I get back to my real (office) job

Tyler wrote: 20 KPa is less than 3 psi, but if you loose the pump or run the oil low it would be essentially zero oil pressure.

That was pretty much my thinking - the oil light is there to warn of oil pump failure / zero pressure.

In practice if the oil pump shut down you'd still have some oil in the top end so when the light comes on...and if you shut the motor off as quick as you can.....then hopefully you'll save it from damage.

Otherwise you may as well fit an oil pressure gauge.

hillsy wrote:

Tyler wrote: 20 KPa is less than 3 psi, but if you loose the pump or run the oil low it would be essentially zero oil pressure.

That was pretty much my thinking - the oil light is there to warn of oil pump failure / zero pressure.

In practice if the oil pump shut down you'd still have some oil in the top end so when the light comes on...and if you shut the motor off as quick as you can.....then hopefully you'll save it from damage.

Otherwise you may as well fit an oil pressure gauge.

Let's not forget that the biggest reason for maintaining oil pressure is to create an oil wedge between the crank main and crankshaft journal bearings. without the oil wedge, there's no cushion in the rotating elements and the lead babbitt journal shells. Add that to the fact that the oil cools the rotating parts. No cooling and you'll wipe the babbitt right off of the bearing shells.

European cars will not fire the spark plugs until minimum oil pressure is made. I learned this lesson the hard way in a Fiat once. Ran out of oil and the car just stopped running. Took me 3 days to figure out that the fault in the ignition circuit was actually a failsafe built in to the ignition circuit to save the idiot from ruining the engine. I'ze smarter now !!

Kawboy wrote:

hillsy wrote:

Tyler wrote: 20 KPa is less than 3 psi, but if you loose the pump or run the oil low it would be essentially zero oil pressure.

That was pretty much my thinking - the oil light is there to warn of oil pump failure / zero pressure.

In practice if the oil pump shut down you'd still have some oil in the top end so when the light comes on...and if you shut the motor off as quick as you can.....then hopefully you'll save it from damage.

Otherwise you may as well fit an oil pressure gauge.

Let's not forget that the biggest reason for maintaining oil pressure is to create an oil wedge between the crank main and crankshaft journal bearings. without the oil wedge, there's no cushion in the rotating elements and the lead babbitt journal shells. Add that to the fact that the oil cools the rotating parts. No cooling and you'll wipe the babbitt right off of the bearing shells.

European cars will not fire the spark plugs until minimum oil pressure is made. I learned this lesson the hard way in a Fiat once. Ran out of oil and the car just stopped running. Took me 3 days to figure out that the fault in the ignition circuit was actually a failsafe built in to the ignition circuit to save the idiot from ruining the engine. I'ze smarter now !!

Agree totally on the oil pressure thing. My point is that if the oil pump was to fail, it would probably just stop totally and therefore the oil light would come on. Running an engine for any period of time under these circumstances is not good....but a light coming on is all we've got.

Unless you mount up an oil pressure gauge and watch it religiously in case the oil gets below a certain pressure I don't see there being much point in having anything different in the oil light circuit.

However, it might be interesting to experiment with different pressured rated switches to see which one gets closer to the borderline of triggering.