Oil in Frame

[beemerrich]

All,

I finally got my bike back together and now sport Rodburner's original oil-in-frame downtubes as part of the package. No unsightly oil cooler blocking the air path to the head. So the DNA from Steve's bike and his inspiration for an oil cooler-less ride lives on:

Plumbing the lower oil lines around the D&D 2 into 1 exhaust was a challenge and I cheated a bit by inserting a square of muffler packing between the exhaust headers/collector and the oil lines. Only rode 30 miles or so thus far...haven't melted anything yet.

Hope you all are enjoying the summer. Mine just got a lot better by being back in the wind.

Cheers,

--Rich

 

[Motley]

Do the frame tubes offer enough oil cooling Rich?

 

[beemerrich]

This change was well documented by others and reportedly the motor runs as cool or cooler than stock. Yes, I am standing on the shoulders of giants. More oil capacity and unimpeded airflow to the head is likely the reason.

Regards,

--Rich

 

[strokerlmt]

My opinion is that RodBurner was the first of the New Bonne crowd to do the oil cooling in frame. Look in "search" on NBR and you will see what this North west Bonne genius created. I have the Bill Gately Bonneville Performance oil coolers on my bike and I am thinking about going to "in the frame" for more of the retro look.
Great job Rich......
LMT

 

[D9]

BADASS... looking good Rich!

 

[Texas94fs]

Drool.

 

[Motley]

I'm thinking "why bother". If this method cools as well as, or better, than the radiator, why not simply remove the radiator? Surely the frame tubing can't offer much in the way of heat transfer.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea.

 

[beemerrich]

Why bother? Good question. I guess I like to tinker and have spent a fair amount of time gift wrapping this dead beaver to make it perform nearly as good as a 1990's vintage 600 cc sport bike. Where our machines excel is in their timeless good looks and this change adds to that IMHO.

My guess is that you'd be fine just removing the oil cooler and sending the oil straight to the pan. That's what the jack pine scrambler bike did, but it was a show bike and not a rider. Using the fork tubes adds more oil capacity and does provide some heat dissipation. Just an added measure of security over the simple elimination of the cooler - which once can argue was put there for a reason.

Regards,

--Rich

 

[Motley]

You've piqued my interest Rich. The Jack Pine Scrambler simply plugged the oil ports and they claim it had no ill-effect. I must look into this further.

 

[Texas94fs]

Whoa. if theres a way to get rid of the cooler. . .that might have to be done.

I almost wonder if you could just run oil lines from the head, along the front of the frame and use the length of line itself, as well as airflow past it to cool. I'm sure stainless braided lines have to have at least a large enough surface area to have some heat transfer.

 

[Motley]

Whoa. if theres a way to get rid of the cooler. . .that might have to be done.

I almost wonder if you could just run oil lines from the head, along the front of the frame and use the length of line itself, as well as airflow past it to cool. I'm sure stainless braided lines have to have at least a large enough surface area to have some heat transfer.

Cheap an' dirty might be to just run, discretely, some annealed 3/8" copper tube (painted black, of course), along the frame rails.

Removing the cooler altogether would be simple enough to experiment with. Some baseline temperatures would need to be established and compared to those after removing the cooler. The only issue may be, changing the flow of oil through the motor, particularly the heads, something might get starved for oil.

 

[Texas94fs]

Motley that's a good point. I reckon you could get away with something as long as ID of the the line wasn't dropped much. Course, I'm not about to play with that in Houston where our summer temps are usually 100F or more. A lot of work for something that might not work in this climate.