OILS

Oils are everywhere. In your car, on your bike and motorcycles even food.

They help things glide more smoothly and have less friction. Without oils, all will

fail. I will be telling you about the different lubricants, the confusing “10w 30”

numbers on container, how chemistry ties in with oils, grease and chain lube. Oils

are what keep this world moving and not jam up.

For my dirt bike I need to use many different oils. Engine oil is the obvious one.

Engine oil makes the cylinder move up and down without slowing down. It just goes up

and down in a swift motion. Another is transmission. When you shift, you need it to

be a nice easy transition through the gears. Dirt bikes do not use transmission oil

except for Honda, which was a pain to change. Kawasaki, Yamaha, KTM, and Suzuki

actually use the motor oil and it works just fine. For suspension motorcycles need

to use fork oils. This simply helps out the front forks move without locking up. It

would be very bad if your forks locked up over a jump. It would be like hitting a

brick wall when you landed. The back spring does not require any oil. Chain lube is

used or should be used for every chain. Chain lube is used to make the chain glide

easier instead of a bone dry chain. If you do not use chain lube it could rust

really bad and eventually break off. The only problem with chain lube is that it

comes off so easily. You would have to put more on repetitively in order for it to

work properly. Some people use chain wax instead of chain lube. Chain wax makes the

chain last longer and goes through rain. But on the downside it’s really sticky and

is attracted to dirt and debris and is also really hard to clean off of your bike

because of the stickiness. So I would prefer chain lube. I searched and found most

of these answers from Wikipedia. Another type of oil used is grease. Grease is not

used much on dirt bikes except for on the axel and bearings. The axel grease reduces

friction on the wheels and makes them move more fluently. Bearings are little tiny

balls in a circle and they are placed on the axel to literally keep the ball

rolling. The bearings need grease to keep the little balls rolling inside. Another

type of oil I use is for my air filter. The air filter sucks in air, goes through

the air cleaner. Then, gas is added to the air to compress the cylinder and fires

the spark plug. Back to the point, I need to clean the air filter in order for the

dirt not to clog the air intake. After you clean it you need to spray air filter

oil on it. It’s kind of like a sticky, slimy substance. The sticky gunk collects the

dirt and loose debris so it doesn’t go through your air intake. You should always

clean your air filter in order for your engine to work properly. Another thing that

needs your engine to work properly is the type of oil you use. Do you ever wonder

what the “10w 30” on the bottom of your oil mean? Well the 10 and below numbers mean

it is really light and flows easily. You would use these types of oils if it is cold

outside. The “W” has two meanings; one is how much the oil weighs. Another is that

it will be able to work in cold weather as well. So if it’s normal outside you

would need thicker oil like a 20w 50. It is thicker but it works just as good in

cold climates as well. The second number is how hot the engine needs to be in order

for that oil to work properly. I got these from: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=119270&page=2. I liked this guy because it

sounded like he did his research well.

How does chemistry tie in with all of this? Oils contain all of these compounds:

• Alcohols
• Aldehydes
• Esters
• Ethers
• Ketones
• Phenols
• Terpenes

I got the list from http://www.therealessentials.com/chemistry.html. I thought this

site was very reliable to use on my essay.

By now you should know all about the oils I use on my dirt bike. We need to use

motor oil, fork oil, transmission (for the Hondas), chain lube and chain wax,

greases and we finally learned about the numbers and how it ties in with chemistry.