It's July and time for hot riding weather. The one complaint I've been getting is the loss of oil pressure when a bike gets hot. This seems to occur in big inch motors and is caused by two things.

The first is the expansion of the oil pump. The oil pump body is mad of aluminum and the gears are made of steel The aluminum body will get bigger a lot faster than the steel body. This will cause excessive space between the body and the gears. This cannot be stopped.

The other major cause of the loss of oil pressure is the breakdown of oil due to heat. Oil will get thinner as it gets hotter. This will cause oil pressure to drop fast. You can control this in a couple of different ways. First you can cool the oil with a cooler. An oil cooler will work like a radiator to cool your oil. They work well if you have air flow. The problem is at a stand still like a traffic jam, you have no air flow and the oil will not cool. The other solution is a synthetic oil. Synthetic oil will maintain its viscosity, or thickness, to a much higher temperature. This will keep your bike running even in the worst traffic jam. Of course, synthetic oil does cost about 4 times as much, but most riders only change oil once or twice a year.

If you have a big inch motor, a good synthetic oil is a must. These engines will make much more heat and break oil down very fast. This will damage our big bad engine!!!!