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oil light for 20 seconds after oil change?

Gen 4: 2011-15 
4K views 11 replies 7 participants last post by  Capncalyx 
#1 · (Edited)
so I went to go change my oil a week ago and noticed that the coolant was leaking from the weep hole. so I read about the job on here and saw some people experienced oil running out when pulling the pump so I drained the oil. I ordered the parts and waiting a week to start the job. anyhow got the parts replaced, added the correct quantity of amsoil, filled with coolant and started the bike. the red light came on and I think I noticed it stay on for upwards of 20 seconds. the bike sounded weird the entire time the red light was on and then bam as soon as the light went out it sounded normal again. I always used amsoil in the past. is 20 seconds of idling without oil pressure flowing going to damage my motor in any way or am I fine and should I stop worrying. if something could have happned what should I look for, or listen for etc? as far as I could tell it sounded no diff then it ever sounded in the past but all I did was idle the bike. I haven't ridden it yet
 
#3 ·
this is a common problem with Kawasaki sportbike motors, and there are MULTIPLE threads on here and elsewhere on the net, going over this. due to the location of the oil filter, pick up, and draining of the oil, and subsequent refilling of the oil/filter... there seems to be an issue with an air bubble getting between the pick up, and the motor, where the pressure sender is located.

you just starved your engine of oil for 20 seconds, due to this phenomenon. with the light on after an oil change, you should IMMEDIATELY shut off the motor. with in-natural noises, YOU SHOULD DEFINATELY SHUT THE MOTOR OFF, AND CHECK THINGS OUT.

The normal procedure for this is, to loosen the oil filter, restart the motor, loosen the oil filter until oil starts coming out, showing you have flow, shut off bike, tighten the oil filter, clean, dry the area, then restart checking for the light, leaks, and un-natural noises.

keep an eye on it, hopefully you didn't do anything to the motor, that would cause it to fail but, you could have. I wish you good luck. keep us posted. Ski
 
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#5 · (Edited)
Well, I'll give you my take on this subject. It largely restates exactly what skidooboy posted above. That's spot-on.

I will add the fact that you did do damage to the motor. Every engine start does. And no, there's nothing to watch out for and nothing to do to it now. Except of course, make sure it doesn't get repeated.

Assuming that the engine is in proper mechanical order, the vast majority of engine damage (car, motorcycle, boat, etc) occurs at startup. That's because the crankshaft is turning and there's no oil pressure from the oil pump and the metal is cold. It makes no difference that there's residual oil in there. That doesn't change the fact that the plain crankshaft and rod bearings are designed to run on a pressurized oil film the thickness of a few thousandths of an inch. Without this pressurized oil, the metal surfaces are in too close proximity to each other, heat up quickly, and wear out the metal surfaces. Just the way it is.

Prolonged running in this oil pressure state makes it worse. Which is why if the RED oil pressure warning light ever comes on, it should be shutdown immediately to prevent extensive damage. If the pressure falls and stays there, the engine will seize within seconds. Each engine start wears a tiny bit of metal off the the plain bearings. It's really unavoidable. As the bearings wear down, the oil leaks out faster from the thin area that should be there to trap the oil and create the pressurized oil that acts as the bearing. As this pressure film drops, the bearings wear more and the cycle is repeated until the engine seizes or the the bearings come unseated and spin in the crankcase/piston rod. And on interference motors, this usually causes the pistons to hit the head, bend valves, and other bad things.

In extreme cases, this wearing out will cause and engine to fail immediately. In most cases this won't be noticed in the life of the vehicle (since they're wrecked, sold, or other parts fail first). In this case, it could be that the engine lasts 1000 miles instead of 100,000 miles. Aside from taking the motor out of the bike, splitting the engine crankcase apart, measuring the bearings shells, putting the whole thing back together, and starting over, you don't know. So ride on and be sure that you don't repeat this again.
 
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#6 ·
I always fill the oil filter full of oil and I mean full by letting it soak in. I know most people would think it would all pour out as you install it but it doesnt if you start to thread it on fast. The rotation of the filter keeps relatively thick oil from coming out much. Then you dont have to burp it.

Take aluminum foil and place it around the headers to catch any oil mess. You should be doing this anyway when removing the old filter to keep the mess minimal.
 
#7 ·
:ayyy: I always mostly fill the filter prior to install also! But in my case, it's mainly to get the filter element wet so it doesn't get hit with pressurized oil while it's dry (that's what she said!). In my cases, I've experienced the low oil pressure warning after startup even with prefilling the filter. In some cases, that doesn't seem to matter. But it should be done this way just for good measure regardless!

The other option apparently is to drain the old oil out of the sump, fill it with new oil, then change the filter (and prefill the new one), before starting it. This technique apparently keeps the oil pump from fully draining and creating the air pocket in it. Several people have done it this way with success, but I've not tried it this way personally myself.
 
#8 · (Edited)
alright so ill ride a 1000 hard miles and if my motor still performs like a champ ill stop worrying about this/.. if my motor fails I think I will cry for about 2 years because of an oil change destroying my motor.

I just wrote to corporate Kawasaki an explained the whole scenario to get a take on this. if I get a reply ill let u know what they say.
 
#10 ·
btw. i think it just felt like it was 20 seconds, i cant tell you how many times i went out there with a stop watch and reenacted the whole scenario to get a more accurate time. i think it was like 10 seconds max according to my stop watch. also i had the coolant system completely drained as well so maybe the weird sounds i herd was all the air pockets working its way out of the pump area as well. it wasnt bad sounds as i described in post one. it was just different sounds coming from that area but both pumps are right there.
i dont know, my gut says everything is fine and no way that engine took damage. i cant see how kawasaki could create an engine that could fail just from doing and oil change
 
#11 ·
I contacted three local kawi dealers about this, and none reported doing anything different to kawasaki motorcycles or kawasaki engines of any kind when performing an oil change. Does that mean tens of thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands of kawasaki engines are going to meet an early demise?
 
#12 ·
so I went to go change my oil a week ago and noticed that the coolant was leaking from the weep hole. so I read about the job on here and saw some people experienced oil running out when pulling the pump so I drained the oil. I ordered the parts and waiting a week to start the job. anyhow got the parts replaced, added the correct quantity of amsoil, filled with coolant and started the bike. the red light came on and I think I noticed it stay on for upwards of 20 seconds. the bike sounded weird the entire time the red light was on and then bam as soon as the light went out it sounded normal again. I always used amsoil in the past. is 20 seconds of idling without oil pressure flowing going to damage my motor in any way or am I fine and should I stop worrying. if something could have happned what should I look for, or listen for etc? as far as I could tell it sounded no diff then it ever sounded in the past but all I did was idle the bike. I haven't ridden it yet
Scout? What say you??

But yea, ive been at the 10 sec mark before and shut it down - probably the longest ive gone with the red light. Usually try not to go more than a few sec's. And ive never had to lose oil while un-doing the filter. I always loosen it a little, turn bike on, maybe loosen a little more and tighten back up - no oil lost.:dontknow:
 
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