Seahag what did the oil level on the dipstick indicate before startup?

We are considering moving to Vegas next summer, I want to have oil collers on both bikes before we get there.

 

Its not uncommon to find custom chopper and bobber builders who used the frame as the oil cooler. Some folks are visionaries or pioneers and the rest just like to feel safe. The builders of homebuilt airplanes have always lead with new innovative ideas before the industry. They were using computer driven cockpit displays long before the industry accepted them.

Beary

 

A thermostat would prevent oil draining back into the sump. It would close once oil temp dropped, so that deals with that! Triumph and no doubt others have used the frame as an oil tank. My Buell uses the swingarm. Large surface area helps to cool the oil, which is what a dedicated oil cooler does.

Early Evo Glides used the crashbar as a front suspension air reservoir (they changed to using the handlebars later), so Harley has form doing this sort of thing!

 

It's an interesting idea, but is there an advantage over a regular oil cooler?

 

The advantage I see is that its already there. I like the clean unclutered look of the bike.

ebay has the Sifton adapters for under $100.

 

A spot-on tune with some "non-EPA" cams, gets rid of a lot of heat problems without the cluttered look.

 

As I lay on the garage floor working on the bike today I gave the crash bar a good once over. I must say that useing it as an oil cooler has its merits. Im always nervous about threading oil or water fittings into a plate as thin as the crash bar mounting tabs. I think I would be more comfortable having a bung welded on. That would also give you a bigger hole to work with when cleaning out the debrie from drilling.

Running hot oil through the crash bar is probaly not going to allow you to use factory lowers.

Im going to give it some thought and may give it a go for next summer if we move to Vegas.

 

I can only speak from my experience and I have found that the crash bar mounting flange is NOT flimsy. It's designed to protect the bike rather well. In fact it can take direct hits from rocks and debris all day long. I'm not so sure a tradional oil cooler with thin fins and tubes can.

You can run lowers. I took a piece of chamois leather and wrapped it around the area that contacts the bar and secured it with a tight zip tie. This will insulate the lower from some of the heat from the oil passing through it.

 

Using a crash bar as an oil "cooler", and then covering it up with the lowers sounds counter productive. That even compounds the fact that the bar has no cooling fins on it.

Moving to Vegas sure seems like it would justify a real oil cooler.

If the crash bar was any kind of effective, HD would have done it years ago.

 

Fins on a oil cooler serve one purpose. More surface area to disipate heat.

The crashbar has an outside diameter of 1.25in, so lets say an inside diameter of 1in. Its about 70 in long.

Thats about 220 square inches of surface area to disipate heat.

One post stated that useing the crashbar adds about 1.5 additional qts of oil.

So 1.5 qts more oil to disipate heat and 220 square inches of surface area outside the engine to disipate heat as well.

Thats a pretty good oil cooler.

As far as that goes I think its a good idea. I also like not adding another engine part to the bike.

My concerns:

1. Is the oil pump strong enough to keep up, thats a long way to pump oil.
2. Will the oil drainback into the oilpan at shutdown and overfill the engine. Thats bad.