Catching Particles In Your Oil With Monster Energy Kawasaki Off-Road's Andy Smith - Dirt Rider Magazine

Your engine relies on its oil for lubrication and cooling. As that oil mixes with metal-to-metal parts it picks up contaminants that can spread and cause excess wear and possible motor failure. Sound scary? It is, which is one reason to change your oil often, and even go an additional step to removing particles from the system that an oil flush might not purge. Andy Smith shared a few reasons on why it's good to use magnets on oil covers and drain bolts as part of your engine maintenance program."Using magnets to catch metal particles in your oil can prevent a lot of failures by getting the particles out. But also, by looking at what's stuck on the magnets, you can get an idea where the metal shavings are coming from to detect any internal wear early. There's likely going to be clutch fiber material because that's the most abused part of the motorcycle. It's just regular wear and tear on the bike. If there's any bright, shiny metal, it could be tranny parts, edges off the gears, etc. If there's any casting, it could be possibly from a shift fork or another cast part. Sometimes you have to try to think of what is in the motor that resembles what you have there in your hand."

"It's definitely better to change your oil when it's warm. It runs out faster and cleaner and will carry out more debris with it when it's hot. Milky oil means you have water in your oil. That could be due to a bad water pump seal, or a hot motor can actually suck up water in creek crossings through the vent. If the oil's really, really black, that's probably due to a lot of clutch heat in the motor. It's like caramel, it gets thick and bulky. If you see that, it's a good thing you're changing it."

Zip-Ty Racing makes a selection of gunk-trapping magnets.

"Riding slow through the woods is hard on a bike's oil because you're using the clutch, you're building lots of heat in the motor and there's not a lot of air moving through the radiators. High speed through the desert, it's probably a steady pace and you have lots of moving air to dissipate the heat. Follow your manual, and your instinct, too. If you think you've been abusing your clutch or if you got the motor really hot with lots of mud baked on it, it's best just to change the oil every ride."_**Check out all the Monster Energy Kawasaki race teams at

www.kawasaki.com.**_