Oil Consumption-This might be your problem too!

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City Garage

City Garage

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Very low mile(2500) motorcycle with high oil consumption and high blow by in the airbox

Notice what the problem might be?


IMG_6622.jpg

IMG_6623.jpg
 
Nothing new.
My 2013 961 CR was delivered with the same problem.
Smoked like a house on fire until it warmed up, and used lots of oil.
Factory fixed it through my dealer in 2014.

www.accessnorton.com

“WHICH PARTS FROM OTHER BIKES FIT THE 961”

Sorry to see that. If the motor is blowing that much oil out, clearly there is too much lube collecting in the sump during the engine's operation. The scavenge pump should prevent this. Tony, Is there any way to check the scavenge channel in the engine for blockages or a partial blockage? I...
www.accessnorton.com www.accessnorton.com
 
baz said:
Who the hell set those rings up?
Click to expand...

Doesn't matter as the rings slowly rotate and why 2-stroke rings are pegged.

Rotation of piston rings

Piston rings lead a much more active life than might be thought. While we usually imagine that they only reciprocate in a motion defined by the piston, they also rotate during service. Such rotation has been the subject of many experiments and studies over the years, but this is not simply a...
www.highpowermedia.com

Method for Measurement of Piston Ring Rotation in an Operating Engine on JSTOR

A radiotracer technique has been developed to monitor the rotational movement of piston rings during engine operation. Each ring to be monitored is modified by ...
www.jstor.org www.jstor.org

Everything You Wanted to Know about Piston Ring Grooves

Ring groove placement, size, and finish are paramount attributes to overall piston performance.
blog.wiseco.com blog.wiseco.com
"The main purpose for axial clearance is to allow the ring to spin. The cross-hatch in the cylinder walls induces rotation of the rings."
 
L.A.B. said:
Doesn't matter as the rings slowly rotate and why 2-stroke rings are pegged.

Rotation of piston rings

Piston rings lead a much more active life than might be thought. While we usually imagine that they only reciprocate in a motion defined by the piston, they also rotate during service. Such rotation has been the subject of many experiments and studies over the years, but this is not simply a...
www.highpowermedia.com

Method for Measurement of Piston Ring Rotation in an Operating Engine on JSTOR

A radiotracer technique has been developed to monitor the rotational movement of piston rings during engine operation. Each ring to be monitored is modified by ...
www.jstor.org www.jstor.org

Everything You Wanted to Know about Piston Ring Grooves

Ring groove placement, size, and finish are paramount attributes to overall piston performance.
blog.wiseco.com blog.wiseco.com
"The main purpose for axial clearance is to allow the ring to spin. The cross-hatch in the cylinder walls induces rotation of the rings."
Click to expand...
Built many engines and never had rings rotate. They might shift slightly but never moved. Also the chances of all of them lining up is lottery winning.
 
City Garage said:
Built many engines and never had rings rotate. They might shift slightly but never moved. Also the chances of all of them lining up is lottery winning.
Click to expand...
Nevertheless, rings are known to rotate.

Piston Ring Rotation - Engine & fuel engineering - Eng-Tips

Hi, Everyone knows rings rotate, does anyone know what forces cause this? It has been observed in Pyrex cylinders, so that rules out cross hatch as the reason.
www.eng-tips.com www.eng-tips.com
www.hotrodders.com

Do Piston Rings Rotate?

www.hotrodders.com www.hotrodders.com

Do piston rings rotate on the piston? - Club Cobra

Help, I'm trying to regain my equilibrium. I'm nearly 60 years old and I read a post on another forum where the writer asserted that piston rings
www.clubcobra.com

Do piston rings turn when the engine is running?

Do piston rings turn when the engine is running?
stunthanger.com

How do piston rings work? - Neeness

How do piston rings work? Piston rings seal the combustion chamber, conduct heat from the piston to the cylinder wall, and return oil to the crankcase.
neeness.com neeness.com
forums.autosport.com

PISTON RINGS - The Technical Forum Archive

PISTON RINGS - posted in The Technical Forum Archive: It would be interesting to compare notes on this subject . As a young development engineer working on the Napier Deltic engine, my boss asked me to look in to this and send him a report. After a lot of head scratching my conclusions were as...
forums.autosport.com forums.autosport.com

so who as seen rings rotate after install?? - Honda-Tech - Honda Forum Discussion

Forced Induction - so who as seen rings rotate after install?? - after experiencing a fair bit of oil burning i took the engine apart today. keep in mind it had 384 miles on it. i found that all the piston rings had rotated around in the bore after being installed. i use the factory specs for...
honda-tech.com
www.kzrider.com

Piston ring orientation?

Piston ring orientation?
www.kzrider.com www.kzrider.com

PISTON RING ALIGNMENT? - Engine & fuel engineering - Eng-Tips

When inspecting engines returned for warranty complaints, we keep comming upon a large number (approx 5%-10%) of engines where the 1st.compression and 2nd. comp
www.eng-tips.com www.eng-tips.com

Method for Measurement of Piston Ring Rotation in an Operating Engine on JSTOR

A radiotracer technique has been developed to monitor the rotational movement of piston rings during engine operation. Each ring to be monitored is modified by ...
www.jstor.org www.jstor.org
www.advrider.com

Piston Ring Placement

Installing new rings on the 850 Norton. I've got a new set of AE Federal Mogul rings, with a 'one' piece cast iron oil control ring, rather than the...
www.advrider.com www.advrider.com
 
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City Garage said:
Factory. the right cylinder bore now has a scar right where all the rings were gapped. it will hone out but still not good
Click to expand...
City Garage said:
Built many engines and never had rings rotate. They might shift slightly but never moved. Also the chances of all of them lining up is lottery winning.
Click to expand...
If the ring gaps stay lined up oil consumption and blow by will be higher.
 
A Graham Bell suggested 0.7 rpm rotation (as a general rule probably not)

If that is a modern 'Norton engine and the compression and oil scrapers (three piece) were anywhere near lined up I would put my Lotto guess on a disgruntled assembler. (Or they had worked at the local chip shop before scoring a job at the factory as a technician)

Edit, I missed the 0.
 
Last edited:
Time Warp said:
A Graham Bell suggested 7 rpm rotation (as a general rule probably not)

If that is a modern 'Norton engine and the compression and oil scrapers (three piece) were anywhere near lined up I would put my Lotto guess on a disgruntled assembler. (Or they had worked at the local chip shop before scoring a job at the factory as a technician)
Click to expand...
yes 961. And they have 4 rings and we agree it was someone's bad day.
 
OK so rings rotate. So what makes them rotate in the cylinder? Out of round or tapered finish? I could see if the cylinder was way out of round the ring gap would migrate to it and possibly line up. But why don't we see this more often?
 
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mean gene said:
OK so rings rotate. So what makes them rotate in the cylinder? Out of round or tapered finish? I could see if the cylinder was way out of round the ring gap would migrate to it and possibly line up. But why don't we see this more often?
Click to expand...

Google suggests the cross hatch in the bore and cylinder pressure for one.
Somewhere else suggested that reduced once an engine is run in (cylinder wall finish and type perhaps)
 
Time Warp said:
Google suggests the cross hatch in the bore and cylinder pressure for one.
Somewhere else suggested that reduced once an engine is run in (cylinder wall finish and type perhaps)
Click to expand...
yes and no. The faster the speed the less chance of movement.

The point of the post was that the motorcycle has high consumption and when disassembled we found the rings lined up. That's not "rotation" that's crappy factory work as evidenced by the worn groove in the bore as well.

Be careful of the internet. Someone is going to quote the Journal of the Korean Nuclear Society where they did a test of a single cylinder hydrogen engine at fixed rpm and pressure.
 
I'm sure that rings rotate - don't have an opinion on how fast, why, or if it is all rings (there are lots of types). I was told during my first motorcycle engine rebuild in 1968 to put the top ring at 10, the middle at 2 and the oil at 6 (oil to the rear). I've done that on every engine since no matter how many cylinders. The few that I've taken apart that I built always had the rings different from my setup and surprisingly usually still spaced about 120 degrees apart.

You would think that logic would dictate that cross-hatching, if it caused them to move at all, would make them move back and forth.

IMHO and only guessing: lining up the ring gaps should not cause more oil-related carbon on top of the pistons. The oil-control rings should still do their job. If related to the rings, I would say, gaps wrong, ring(s) upside down, bad hone, wrong rings for the pistons (groove fit), etc. Other possible causes: if oil tank and breathes into air cleaner, too much oil entering carbs, too rich (not oil carbon, gas carbon), ale guides leaking oil, blocked crankcase breather, etc.
 
marshg246 said:
I'm sure that rings rotate - don't have an opinion on how fast, why, or if it is all rings (there are lots of types). I was told during my first motorcycle engine rebuild in 1968 to put the top ring at 10, the middle at 2 and the oil at 6 (oil to the rear). I've done that on every engine since no matter how many cylinders. The few that I've taken apart that I built always had the rings different from my setup and surprisingly usually still spaced about 120 degrees apart.

You would think that logic would dictate that cross-hatching, if it caused them to move at all, would make them move back and forth.

IMHO and only guessing: lining up the ring gaps should not cause more oil-related carbon on top of the pistons. The oil-control rings should still do their job. If related to the rings, I would say, gaps wrong, ring(s) upside down, bad hone, wrong rings for the pistons (groove fit), etc. Other possible causes: if oil tank and breathes into air cleaner, too much oil entering carbs, too rich (not oil carbon, gas carbon), ale guides leaking oil, blocked crankcase breather, etc.
Click to expand...
Greg, This is a 961 and not when the oil rings are facing the same way as we found. And this motorcycle had more than normal top end pressure as well from this issue.
 
Voodooo said:
Piston rings don’t rotate on a boxer Porsche engine. Their pinned.
Your best bet is to use total seal gapless piston rings.
Click to expand...
We use total seal on all of our commando builds and actually are thinking about using them here to see if we can clean up some of the oil issues
 
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