panhead life blood

[1450]

hi all ,i have a 57 pan i live in arizona (hot) .what is a good oil for a pan motor and trans ? i'm using hd-50 oil now

[steinauge]

OK Ill start the fight .I live in Florida and I use Kendall nitro 70 in both my OHV and SV big twins.

[fourthgear]

I also live in Florida & I use a stright wt.syn.60 in the summer & syn.20/50 cooler month(s). I'm pretty much sold on Moble one's 75/140 syn. gearlube for the tranny , much better shifting and my Ultra classic seems to like it too. A little pricy but,better shifting is worth the price.
You will be hearing a lot of opinions.As long as its clean & going where it needs to go , they all work.

[kevsett]

In the summer I've used 60 (probably just Castrol) and 20w50 in the cooler months (again Castrol, HD, etc.). As long as it is a motorcycle oil rated for air cooled motors I've always felt the name brand isn't that much of an issue. Keeping it clean/new by timely changeout is. Many riders have bumped up to synthetic. I haven't and probably won't b/c I feel the bikes did well enough in the old days on standard oil; not to mention the price. But I get closer and closer every year that goes by.

[junker]

Castrol 20-50,buy it by the gallon,change it alot and dont have any problems with it.

[caschnd1]

I live in Arizona. I've run several things during the summer... 70W Kendall Nitro, 20W50 Mobil-1 and lately Valvoline 60W. I've put 60K miles on my panhead since it was rebuit using these oils in the summer. That includes 5 summers of daily commuting to/from work. I'm still showing no signs of wear. Good compression and no oil use. More important then brand of oil is the fact that you change it regularly and keep it clean. I've run a small oil cooler for the last 3 years.

-Craig

[sprucecreek]

Well, I tried 20w50 in my 56 FLH, and it seemed to come out everywhere...pretty slippery stuff, and the bike sumped like crazy when it sat for any length of time. My brother runs Harley straight 60w in his 79 shovel, so I switched over and have had no problems since. A bit heavy for cold weather, so if I rode a lot in below-50 days I would probably run 50w instead, at lease until it got warmer. It seems like a lot of folks run the 20w50 ok, but it didn't work for me.

[hjans]

I always heard only to change from single grade ( HD-original SAE 50 ) to multigrade ( 20W50 or so) after a complete overhaul.
This because the multigrade would remove all the dirt/carbon in the engine, increasing all clearances.
I think it's BS, and when i read the former posts, i think you do to.

Hans