[dogsdad]

I had a Honda CB100 when I was a senior in high school, I think it was a 1970 model. The thing only ran about three weeks before it seized up on me one very hot summer day. This was back in the early 70s, and I never had a bike since.



About two weeks ago, my boss came into my shop and asked me if I had a garage, and if I had any room in it. But of course I did, I replied. He said he wanted to get rid of his 1980 Honda CX500 Custom, and I could have it for $50. I had seen the bike before and it was in pretty nice shape---especially for being 31 years old. I though about it carefully for about two seconds and agreed to his terms. The bike is now in my shed, in my name, in riding condition, and enticing me to ride.



One of the first things I'd like to know is what kind of oil to run. It has been run on some synthetic Amsoil the last several years. I think it is 10W-40. I'll probably have about a thousand MORE questions as I get familiar with the bike and start doing maintenance.



Oh, and I have noticed the classified section here in these forums also. My boss also threw in what amounts to another complete bike without the frame. I have no idea what kind of shape the engine is in, I haven't had time to check it out yet. When I figure out just what I have and what it's called, I'll post some of it. But there sure is a bunch of stuff!

 

[drummertom]

I had a Honda CB100 when I was a senior in high school, I think it was a 1970 model. The thing only ran about three weeks before it seized up on me one very hot summer day. This was back in the early 70s, and I never had a bike since.



About two weeks ago, my boss came into my shop and asked me if I had a garage, and if I had any room in it. But of course I did, I replied. He said he wanted to get rid of his 1980 Honda CX500 Custom, and I could have it for $50. I had seen the bike before and it was in pretty nice shape---especially for being 31 years old. I though about it carefully for about two seconds and agreed to his terms. The bike is now in my shed, in my name, in riding condition, and enticing me to ride.



One of the first things I'd like to know is what kind of oil to run. It has been run on some synthetic Amsoil the last several years. I think it is 10W-40. I'll probably have about a thousand MORE questions as I get familiar with the bike and start doing maintenance.



Oh, and I have noticed the classified section here in these forums also. My boss also threw in what amounts to another complete bike without the frame. I have no idea what kind of shape the engine is in, I haven't had time to check it out yet. When I figure out just what I have and what it's called, I'll post some of it. But there sure is a bunch of stuff!

DUDE!!!! you better go buy a lottery ticket!!!

Welcome to the forum!

 

[marshallf3]

Amsoil is just far too expensive to run in these bikes - especially since it's recommended that you change the oil & filter every 3,000 miles.



Find some Shell Rotella 15W-40 diesel specific oil, it doesn't have the clutch eating additives many other newer oils have, it also still has a decent level of zinc which is important as an anti-shear additive. We subject our oil to a lot of abuse since it's shared by the engine, clutch and transmission.

 

[Guest]

Welcome



If you have the room ,hang on to those parts for a bit,at least until you have had the bike on the road,and you get more familiar with it, have spent some time on the forum reading and finding out about the CX/GL.





If you have not ridden since the 70's you may want to take a basic rider training course,and get some decent gear,there are a lot of bad drivers out there now..

 

[DakotaMK]

$50!?!?!?!?? WOW!

Welcome in! Congrats- and take a few moments to edit your profile to reflect your bike in the signature line, and your location. Perhaps there are other CX'ers in your area to help you or just go for a ride!



Ask questions, have fun!



~MK

 

[ragbagger]

How is life fair? I'm out beating the bushes trying to find a non runner, that has a good title, for $300 or less and this is happening.

Congratulations on your good fortune. Just remember those bikes are precious and irreplaceable to some of us.

 

[stern-69]

Wow small world My son just sold a 1971 CB100 with 1100 km on it. Was My brothers that he fixed up, only to find after it was all done NO ONE would insure it (seems all the insurance companies see it as a 99cc bike, which they wont touch .... and people wonder why I think insurance companies are theeving scum sucking asswipes lol).

Was sad to see go, but at least he got a 1980 750 shadow to ride.



Welcome, and have fun with "fixxin her up". People here are the best, youll soon be addicted like me lol

 

[americanclassic]

You will get a million different answers. Essentially anything without anti friction additives as they make our clutches slip. I buy the Shell Rotella mentioned earlier. Down here a gallon is $15, and available everywhere.



It is often said it is better to do regular changes with cheap oil, than seldom change it with top of the line synthetic.



Welcome to the best forum for these bikes. If you can figure out the difference between a screw driver, and a socket you should have no problems keeping this bike alive.

 

[Phil in Vermont]

Welcome aboard.

 

[Crshndbrn]

I use valvoline 20w50 motorcycle oil. Has additives for wet clutch built in and the bike actually runs cooler on the 20W50 than the lighter oils.

 

[sw3dl1]

I use valvoline 20w50 motorcycle oil. Has additives for wet clutch built in and the bike actually runs cooler on the 20W50 than the lighter oils.

I second 20W 50 Valvoline. Phoenix, AZ everything runs hot!!!.

 

[marshallf3]

I use valvoline 20w50 motorcycle oil. Has additives for wet clutch built in and the bike actually runs cooler on the 20W50 than the lighter oils.

Ages ago I used to run the Valvoline 20W-50 Racing Oil in my hopped up VW Bug, actually ran it in a lot of higher mileage cars, but that was back when acceptable engine tolerances were a lot wider and the overall fit varied by the temperature the engine was running.



That's one thing that's unusual about our bikes that it seemed to have taken another 10 years for most huge automakers to catch up on. Back in the 70s the machine tools were rarely capable of producing parts with tolerances in the 0.01" range in any sort of repeatable fashion in volume, now we can easily hit a repeatability of 0.001" part to part in a run.



Metallurgy has changed a lot too. Unless you were willing to spend a lot more to make them, any sort of steel or especially aluminum alloys were not very dimensionally stable through a broad heat range whereas today's alloys are better than ever.



All this had a profound effect in the early years as the engine's dimensions had to be specified for a certain operating temperature - obviously running temperature. When cold there was a lot of slop and that, combined with motor oils of the day that had little "stay behind" film capacity, led to quite a bit of an engine's wear occurring during the warm up cycle.



All of this had a lot to do with 160* being the common thermostat temperature. By designing optimum at 160*F instead of 195*F things would naturally be closer at start up, now armed with the far better alloys we can run 195*F thermostat temperatures and still hold better tolerances than the older parts could.



BTW: Some may wonder about why we didn't just keep things at 160*F ? The hotter you can run an engine at (without any preignition) the better the mpg it will return.

 

[dogsdad]

Thanks for all the replies. Being in the warmer part of the country, I find the suggestion of a higher viscosity motor oil appealing. I'll surely give it a lot of thought.



I didn't have a photo of the bike all cleaned up until today. Here it is!

 

[dogsdad]

Ages ago I used to run the Valvoline 20W-50 Racing Oil in my hopped up VW Bug, actually ran it in a lot of higher mileage cars, but that was back when acceptable engine tolerances were a lot wider and the overall fit varied by the temperature the engine was running.



That's one thing that's unusual about our bikes that it seemed to have taken another 10 years for most huge automakers to catch up on. Back in the 70s the machine tools were rarely capable of producing parts with tolerances in the 0.01" range in any sort of repeatable fashion in volume, now we can easily hit a repeatability of 0.001" part to part in a run.



Metallurgy has changed a lot too. Unless you were willing to spend a lot more to make them, any sort of steel or especially aluminum alloys were not very dimensionally stable through a broad heat range whereas today's alloys are better than ever.



All this had a profound effect in the early years as the engine's dimensions had to be specified for a certain operating temperature - obviously running temperature. When cold there was a lot of slop and that, combined with motor oils of the day that had little "stay behind" film capacity, led to quite a bit of an engine's wear occurring during the warm up cycle.



All of this had a lot to do with 160* being the common thermostat temperature. By designing optimum at 160*F instead of 195*F things would naturally be closer at start up, now armed with the far better alloys we can run 195*F thermostat temperatures and still hold better tolerances than the older parts could.



BTW: Some may wonder about why we didn't just keep things at 160*F ? The hotter you can run an engine at (without any preignition) the better the mpg it will return.

Marshall, I learned a bit about adiabatic efficiency in an Engineering class many years ago. I was trying to goad the professor into talking about camshafts and compression, but instead he laid this stuff about thermodynamic efficiency on me. I still remember the bottom line: the higher the difference between combustion temperature and exhaust temperature, the better. I think that's why running an engine hotter improves output.



I think you're spot on about the latest machining and metallurgy also. I have had a couple of Mercury Grand Marquis. One was a '95, the other a '98. I ran Mobil 1 in them, and Mobil recommended 5W-20 synthetic for them. Somewhere, I heard or read that they had a lot of lubrication-related failures with police cars (Crown Vics) because the clearances in the engines were so tight that 30W oils just couldn't do the job.

 

[black81silverwing]

Wow! What a nice bike. Welcome to the group. I am relatively new here also. These guys are all great. Everyone is eager to assist where ever possible.



Enjoy the miles and ride safe!

 

[stern-69]

The bike looks great No Im going to have to give mine a good cleaning lol

 

[tdarchangel]

$50!? :_( god I blew a lot of money on mine but its been worth it welcome to the Pac!

 

[marshallf3]

Somewhere, I heard or read that they had a lot of lubrication-related failures with police cars (Crown Vics) because the clearances in the engines were so tight that 30W oils just couldn't do the job.

That and the fact most policemen drive their cars as if they're rentals and will never see them again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Crown_Victoria_Police_Interceptor



The car I'm currently driving (with the GM LQ1 engine) requires a thin oil as in around 10W on the bottom # because at startup there's a ton of tiny oil passages that need to get filled back up with lube. I was running Mobil 1 in it, changed over to mostly 15W-40 Rotella with a quart or two of the Rotella 5W-40 synthetic to thin it up a bit. There's been many more than one of these engines scrapped due to people trying to run straight 30W in them. They don't understand this was actually a testbed engine for GM upon which the Cadillac Northstar engine was developed from. It's officially a Chevy engine but Pontiac was able to get a bit over 700 HP out of it when they go their hands on it. Of course there's no way GM has ever been able to build a transverse tranny that will put up with any decent amount of power although the 4T65E-HD was good for about 350 lb*ft of torque and the 4T80E that's in the Northstar equipped cars is good to around 500 lb*ft. A lot of people never liked this engine as like our 4 valve/cyl bikes they don't start delivering much of anything until you get them up to 3,000 rpm. Luckily during the final two years of production they reprogrammed the PCM to head to 3K right off the bat yet still cruise at a lower rpm range when the torque converter locks up in 3rd or 4th when it senses no demand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GM_60-Degree_V6_engine#LQ1



It also performs well if you can find the highly sought after Getrag 284 5 speed manual and swap it in there. Many (and I may in time) have replaced their failing LQ1s with an L67/4T65E-HD. Not a hard swap - shorter front axle set and an adapter harness, less than $300 for the whole engine swap kit if you can find it.



I've got a decently modded L67 in my almost totaled '98 GTP Pace Car that puts out right at 320 HP / 350 lb*ft at the wheels, I actually pulled a couple of strip runs in the extremely high 12s on that engine, add about another $3K in one of several ways and you can easily get them into the 11 sec range. Mine is tuned for 95 octane but it will safely run off of 91 - although that's an absolute minimum. I've got over 140K on my stock LQ1 and hope to double that so long as the tranny will hold up long enough then I'll probably swap it. My L67 had close to 100K when I had to put it in storage after getting absolutely creamed by an uninsured motorist. Both cars have their advantages and disadvantages - sheer power in the L67 yet despite a lot of suspension mods they still don't corner very well. The final runs of LQ1s, if bought as a Z34 or GTP, borrowed a lot of suspension design from the Corvette thus they corner like they're on rails.



My '98 L67 was in a numbered, limited edition Pace Car of which only 1,500 were produced and only 200 of those had the full factory sunroof which I had. They only built 3,417 of the LQ1 I'm currently driving and only a few hundred of them had the factory sunroof as I do.

 

[dogsdad]

I should have said "10W-30" rather than "30W oils," but I think you know what I meant.



When you said "L67" I had to look it up to see what you were talking about. Had you said "L-88" or "L-89" I woulda known right off the bat! That engine (L-67) has a very interesting history for sure. The LQ-1 is not one I am familiar with...my interest in new iron out of Detroit pretty much ceased to exist by the mid-70s when old-school high performance died, but they've been busy while I was away. All this fuel injection/fuel management and high-fallutin' valve train technology is really something else and pretty much caught me by surprise over the last decade.



I wish I had time to pursue everything that interests me. I've had a lifelong interest in high-performance motoring, handloading and shooting, fiddling with firearms in general, the outdoors in general including fishing especially, and just about anything mechanical or technical in nature and there's just no way I can juggle all that and keep the roof on my house at the same time.

 

[raulbajamx]

welcome dogsdad, hey nice boss, ,,, a very good friend had this gl650i at his mother's house and said to me " Raul, do me a favor , the bike is your's just get it out of my mother's house pronto " so i did,,,