I agree with entirely with Randall on this (fairly) regular topic. If you
look at the three main engines Standard-Triumph made in the 1940's to
1980's, all of them came about at a time when multi-grade oil was not nearly
as sophisticated as today. Moreover, the engines were *designed* to have
valve gear lubed by a trickle - not a force feed.
IMHO, the people who supply external feedpipes are cashing in on the
*relative* ignorance of modern users who feel a force feed is better, and in
this case it's not, for normal use. Everyone can enjoy trouble-free
lubrication by ensuring the rocker shaft drillings and those on the rockers
themselves are free of hardened sludge. With modern oils, even mineral
variants, that are changed every 3000 miles, the sludge build-up should be
minimal. If you doubt what I'm saying, just do the exercise of thoroughly
cleaning the rockers, shafts and their pedestals, re-assemble, check valve
clearance and then let the engine run for about a minute at 2000 rpm without
a valve cover!
Then spend the next hour cleaning the oil splashes off the engine bay.
Let us also question the logic of force-feed to our old engines. If a modern
two-stroke engine is happy running a fuel/oil mix of say 50:1 and doesn't
run its bearings with such a nominal amount of oil dissolved in the fuel,
why should we want to force feed oil to a valve mechanism that isn't
suffering anything like the same pressures and stress as two stroke main
bearings?
If Ted Grinham (designer of the wet liner 4) and David Eley (designer of
later 4 and 6 cyl engines) at Standard-Triumph had felt an external feed was
needed, I'm sure they would have specified it.
Jonmac
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