I'm in the process of doing some routine maintenance on a 94 LTF 250. The machine belongs to my cousin. It was stored uncovered in the weather. So I asked to store it at my house, as I have space in my shed to store it, and I would take care of it as it was mine. When I picked it up, it hadn't been run in years. I had her running in about 15 min...

I'm in the process of doing winter maintenance on all of my equipment. As part of the winter maintenance on this little quad, I wanted to change all the fluids. So I purchased a new oil filter, as I thought the oil looked rather dirty. When I pulled the plug on the oil it was dark, really dirty. The condition of the oil filter made me wonder how the machine was running. The center of the filter was being sucked in, and was full of dirt. It had done its job for far too long... I popped in the new filter, and refilled with fresh oil. I was watching the oil fill window as I was replacing the fluids, and I was amazed. The nice fresh oil got dark due to the left over dirty oil that was still in the system. What bothers me is, doesn't everyone do routine maintenance? I mean something as simple as changing the oil.... Based on the condition of the filter, I'm not sure if the oil has ever been changed... So I'll run it a little, dump the oil, replace the filter again, just to make sure all is healthy.

After doing all of this, watch.... It won't run right because the oil is tooooo clean.

Ok, I'm done complaining....

 

Drain all oil out, fill it with kerosene, pull out the sparkplug, and run the starter for a few seconds and let it sit to dissolve the old oil. Drain, then fill with fresh oil and ride. Change oil often because the gears will tear oil apart. Its not the same as a car engine. Don't use car oil either unless its pre-1988 oil.

 

hey randy, i remember you mentioning the pre-1988 oil thing previously, but I forgot what was it?

wasnt it something with friction modifiers messing up the clutch or something?

and wasnt there some API or JASO lettered designation of some sort?

and lastly, what's your opinion on amsoil 10w40? that's what i use with great success, but a second opinion is always nice.