OK
Given these insane rules, howsabout we do this?
I buy the rod of your choice.
I send it to you as a friend, not a business.
I charge nothing, make no profit, and am not in this bike thing to make money.
That works for me if it works for you, and it seems to me that simply stopping by the
post office and forwarding it would take all of five minutes, and the post office is 1/2 mile from my house.
In other words, no big deal, and the greedhead jerks gouging you for the rods can gouge elsewhere.
Reasonable profit is one thing, gouging is an entirely different kettle of fish, and it stinks.
Besides that, giving cash to greedheads empowers them.
So fuckem and feedum fish heads. How's that?
As for oil, you couldn't pay me to run 10 weight oil in a motorcycle, unless it was 20 below zero outside, and I would never run car oil in a motorcycle.
Over here, they have restricted the additions of phosphorous and zinc in motor oils.
If these are present in a worn out engine, they burn in the combustion chamber and pollute the air. OK.
On the other hand, you or I could generate 46556446475757875 times the zinc and phosphorous into the atmosphere simply by welding on a series of galvanized handrails, which has not been restricted.
Phosphorous and zinc are among the best additives in any motor oil, but are only allowed in vehicles without catalytic converters here because they could concievably clog them up, and an engine that smokes would be pumping these bad components into the air.
That's why the EPA has put the rule forward.
We who run vehicles that share tranny oil with the crank need these additives more than anyone, as transmission gears shear oil lubricating long string molecules more than cylinder and bearings do.
Zinc and phosphorous both have tremendous molecular shear resistance, so if we run oil without them, everything breaks faster and easier.
Over here, MA on the oilcan says it all, and if the oil can't pass JASO valve train torture tests it is garbage.
Maybe we have access to better oil over here, I don't know.
One thing I do know.
Any oil over here that brags about greater mileage on the can has short molecules that will destroy cams, bearings, rods and starter clutches on bikes, as they have no film strength and no molecular drag.
You may experience slightly better fuel mileage because thay are a little slipperier, but meanwhile your engine is grinding itself into junk and everything will wear out and fail at an accellerated pace.
SAE rates our oils over here. It stands for Society of American Engineers, so you probably don't have that rating on your oils.
In the absence of that, I suppose you guys should run oils that are specifically engineered for four stroke motorcycles.
Some of this information is sort of guarded, and oil companies over here don't like to talk about it, for obvious reasons.
I know a guy who designs oils for a big company, but he also loves and builds high horsepower bikes and streetrods.
That's where the information comes from. Cool for now. Jim
