Oil Issue... Maybe?

Alright so I have a 1983 Maxim 750. on the advice of some of the people on this site I bought and installed an oil cooler from a Seca 900. I changed the oil while I was doing this. this is the first time starting the bike in months. I cranked it over and got it started. then I turned it off and looked in the oil window. When I looked in the oil looked brown and frothy... it had a head on it in beer terms. I was wondering if this is something I should be concerned about? could any residual oil from the cooler turned all the oil brown? do I need to change the oil again. I will if I have to but I just spent $50 on that oil.

 

also could it indicate a worse problem?

 

Life, froth indicates a fair amount of water in the oil. You need to flush and refill the oil (new filter while your at it). I wouldn't ride it until you do change it out. Watered down oil isn't very good for bearings.

 

Robert's the man - classic water in the oil syndrome. Sounds like there was water in that cooler.

Unfortunately that sumpful of oil is done - new oil & filter are needed ASAP.

 

yeah I just went to the store and bought a new filter and some more motorcycle oil. I also went to the autoparts store and bought 12 quarts of regular motoroil. I am going to drain the motorcycle oil with water out now then fill it with regular car oil and run it for a few minutes, then drain that and put more car oil in and run it for a few more minutes. then after draining that hopefully I should have gotten rid of all of the water. if it still looks frothy though I'm going to change the oil a third time with the cheap car oil just to get rid of the water.

is this the best way to go? its really the only way I could figure out to get rid of the water

 

Robert has it exactly right. The Cooler you installed must have been Flushed-out with a hose or something. Somehow, water was introduced to the Oil in your Crankcase.

You may wind-up changing the oil a few times to get rid of the mess that the water made of things.

When you change the Oil to get rid of the moisture you'll need to pull the Cam Cover and clean the inside of the Cam Cover where a godd bit of the "Froth" (Sludge) has likely accumulated.

Once you have the Cam Cover off ... you can use a Turkey Baster to clear-out the Cam Gallery's and nooks and crannies where the mixture accumulated without descending to the Sump as Scavenge.

Run 20/50 Oil.
Be prepared to Clean-out the "Shelf" behind the Air Filter inside the Airbox.
As the Moisture evacuates it will be drawn-out through the Crankcase Ventilation System.
Prepare for it to accumulate in the Airbox.

Check the Airbox for accumulation of the Mixture before running the Bike hard because if there is enough of it to be drawn-up past the Baffle it will wind-up right in the airbox right in front of the Rubber Boots ready to be drawn-in to the Engine under heavy vacuum.

 

is taking the cam cover off a must to get all the water out? thats a little bit out of my realm of knowledge. would my plan of just changing the oil a lot work enough to be adequate to prevent problems?

 

I suppose you can get by without cleaning-out the Cam Cover. The sludge will eventually break down and wind-up in the filter or boiled-away under the heat of normal driving conditions.

You might wind-up having to do several oil changes and I would wipe-out the void behind the Air Filter. That isn't too hard to do.

Remove the seat.
Undo the screws holding the airbox cover on.
Remove the air filter.
Paper towel the shelf behind the air filter and let us know what you find when you remove the air filter.

I have an idea that its going to be pretty nasty behind there and it will likely need cleaning out a few times until the moisture in sump and the sludge gets boiled away and pulled-out by the Crankcase Venting into there.

 

Don't forget, a small bit of the water will vaporize when the oil heats up so I would have a look at the oil after the first flush. You might get lucky at one flush. If I recall correctly, the cooler doesn't have a whole heck of a lot of volume so odds are you'll get the bulk of it on the first pass. I would expect that a small bit of water in your oil this time of year is normal given condensation. But only a little bit. Your description suggests far more than the oil can handle. If I had my 'druthers, I'druther clean the system out top to bottom as Rick suggested. Best of luck, let us know how things resolve themselves.