type of oil for a 1986 1200 goldwing???

[steppin stone]

Hello , I have been searching the forum and I am a little confused by what kind of oil I need. I want to do an oil change on the bike but have no idea what type to get. Am I suppose to buy oil for diesel engines? Thanks in advance for any input

[CrystalPistol]

Not sure about 1986s ….. but my '85 GL1200A runs and shifts superbly on Delo LE400 (or is it 400LE? I forget, same stuff) 15W40 ….

…. as I recall, think book says oil with no moly, 10W30 or 10W40.

[Rednaxs60]

Our bikes were manufactured years before the use of friction additives and the JASO standard. The OEM requires the use of oils that meet or exceed SAE SE/SF standards ( superseded by today's SAE SN standard), be a high quality, high detergent oil and no additives required.

The oil you have used looks good as long as the API donut has no indication in the lower half that there are energy conserving/friction modifiers added. The lower half of the donut should be blank. Here are pics of what you want to see and can purchase, and what you do not want to purchase.

Purchase oil that has this type of API donut:

Do not purchase oils with this type of API donut:

The JASO standard came out in 1999. There is the JASO MA and MA2 standard. The JASO standard basically states that there are no friction/energy conserving additives in the oil and it is good for wet clutch applications. The difference between JASO MA and MA2 standards is that JASO MA2 standard is suitable for engines that have catalytic converters. If you don't have a catalytic converter either standard is good.

Check out Wingadmin's thread:viewtopic.php?f=19&t=40705

Cheers

[steppin stone]

Thanks for the clarification I can now do an oil change Thanks again for the help guys.

[SilverDave]

The 1200's have a compromised charging system .. The top two failure reasons appear to be :
A ) the 3 yellow wire stator plug ( cut it out and hard solder those wires)

B) the corrosive nature of old oil acid in the stator windings wire insulation .

There may be other reasons as well.......

So I " keep mine going " by VERY frequent oil changes ( about 3000 km ) .

Oil is cheap compared to pulling the engine .
I use whatever 10-30 or 10-40 motorcycle oil I can find ... and If its on sale , I buy enough for the next oil change .
As Rednaxs points out , the critical thing is nothing in the lower half of the API donut.... These machines have wet clutches.

Last summer a local dealer had Lucas motorcycle oil , semi synthetic, on for about $1.25 more than Cdn Tire motorcycle oil.

Cool !
I Know on my machine, the oil will be dumped within 3 to 4 thousand ,whatever I buy so that price suited me .

as an added bonus , the " semi syn" which is probably only 30% synthetic, seems to quiet my shifting noise and clunks down ..

( 14 years and 75000km on the same stator after hard wiring ... so I think the oil changes must also help )

For winter storage I use diesel , no additive truck oil at about $2 per litre , which gets dumped in the spring .

SilverDave

[steppin stone]

Well last night I gave it my first oil change sense I picked it up. I think the meat head that changed it last need's a slap! I don't no why he socked the filter housing on so tight I needed a pry bar and a pipe to remove it luckily nothing broke or striped. What a big difference in sound with the new oil purring ...... not as noisy. Thank's for the input and guidance everyone...

[tbeiler]

Wow, pry bar and pipe, that was on way too tight.
On your next oil and filter change, I highly recommend running a tap into the hole to chase the aluminum threads. This will clean up the soft aluminum threads so the steel oil filter bolt will go in easily and minimize the risk of stripping out the threads, especially since as you mentioned the PO over tightened it. By over tightening the steel bolt, the soft aluminum threads will distort.
You can also get a thread file which will restore the threads on the oil filter bolt.
Don't forget our machines are now 30 + years old, and with the many oil changes its had, there is likely to be some distortion on the bolt and internal threads.
Recently, I happened to cross thread a small portion (maybe 1/4") of the aluminum threads putting the filter bolt back in during an oil/filter change.
It was a real PITA, because now I had to order a tap online and wait for it to arrive and get a thread file to clean up the bolt. Worst part was using dental picks to try and clean out the stripped portion well enough so I could run the tap into the hole.
Luckily it all worked out, I think I had a total of 4 days of downtime, but it was time consuming and nerve racking because I thought the aluminum threads were toast.
Good Luck

[SilverDave]

There are a number of things on a GL1200 with VERY small torques :

That oil filter bolt ( about 20 ft-lbs )
the starter fasteners ( about 8 ft-lbs )
and the rear drive unit hypoid oil cap ( finger tight )

I have broken the last 2 , and they are a real PITA to fix ..

SilverDave

[Rednaxs60]

Concur with SilverDave - Oil filter torque spec is 22 ft-lbs (30 nm). Use a new crush washer on the drain plug, 27 ft-lbs (38 nm).

[CrystalPistol]

I once overtightened final drive fill cap, it busted around whole thing. Got new, cross drilled hex portion where it's solid, Now just good & snug, lace copper wire through it, tie off at vent. I also have a few other fill or drain plugs so safety wired on vehicles.