Cooling down me dominator.

[Gonzo]

Firstly, Hi to all. I've just registered on the site after gettin some excellent info over the last week or so. I've just got a 1991 dominator on the road.(hopefully there's a picture on here) It was kindly donated by my mate Ross back in March and built in my back yard, dragged through the flat, out to the street and mot'd last Saturday. I've got an Acerbis 21? litre tank on it and some lovely big XR Baja headlamps and Reikon bars up front. The tailpipe is XR 600, the rear end is yamasaki dunno and there's a couple o homemade ally bits. Part from that everythings standard dommie, pretty much.
Woo Hoo!!, on 2 wheels again after 3 years without a bike. Now I av an ankerin to take it to Spain sometime over the next couple o months but I need to sort out afew things first. I bin ridin around town and it's running fine, starts very easy hot or cold, with a bit of a smoke first thing in the morning but I guess that's valve seals and I'll get into the top end at a later date. No bad noises from the engine ,plenty of power, bit of a bouncy ride but suspension's also further down the list. And the luggage side o things will be last I imagine.Anyway ,one step at a time. My first issue to address is the heat. It's HOT. I've read that they run hot and I know it's bin HOT,HOT ,HOT out there . I'm not sure if what I'm gettin is normal or excessive . I've ordered one of them oil temp guages that screw into the oilfiller/dipstick hole. I've read the woeful tales of cracked heads and I'd like to do what I can to keep mine uncracked .. I've had a couple of XL500R's in the past and an XBR that I despatched for afew months and they all did a great job of heating my inner thighs, but my thighs have never been hotter than with this dommie.!!...Hmmm...So my question is in 2 parts....
1. What is the normal operating temperature for the dominator?
2. What's the biggest oil cooler I can fit on this bike without experiencing too much drop in oil pressure? ( I've got some laying around off other bikes, mainly 4 cylinder jobs, yam xj , etc. can I tell by the external physical dimensions of the cooler if it's a good size? Or should I fill it up and see how much it holds?
3. Does anyone know of a good man/woman/whatever, who can overhaul/rebuild oil pumps to give me maximum pumpage?
Now that's 3 parts.
Look forward to gettin as much oil cooling info as possible,from people who know about these tings.
Anyway off to heat ma thighs now, As my old granny used t say..May your thighs get hot and your head never crack, gaw bless er.. Cheers, Gonzo.

[beat_]

i got an oilcooler of a 2cv (citroen) and that drops the temperature by 20 to 40 degrees depending on driving speed an cooler position.
without an oilcooler it runs between 100 and 120 degrees, with an oilcooler 60 in winter and between 80 and 100 in summer. but mine was fitted between tank and frame so airflow was restrickted

[Gonzo]

Hi Beat, cheers for that info. I'll av a look around. I'd kinda like to use something I've already got being the budget bodger that I am. Can you give me a rough idea of the dimensions of that 2cv cooler. It might match something I've got.

[beat_]

that will be 21x7x4 cm or 8.4x2.8x1.6 inch

[Sime66]

I've got one of those screw-in oil temp things on my Dommie. I took it across Africa and all the way it read 250 F in traffic when the weather was hot and 220 F moving when it was a bit cooler. Everything was fine. Only once looked like overheating (reading about 270-280 F) in very hot traffic chaos, fully loaded in Casablanca.
These figures are OK according to the manual for the gauge (which is for an XR650L - same engine).

[Sime66]

PS - headlights look great!

[Gonzo]

Cheers for that Simon, my temperature guage should arrive tomorrow or saturday so I'll see where we get up to.. Happy Travels, Gonzo.

[Gonzo]

Nice one beat, looks like I've got a cooler about that size. I'm gonna check the guage first an see what it's sayin. If the cooler is being fitted , I'll probably stick it down in front of the bashplate with some kind of grill for protection. Maybe a bit exposed but I can't really see a better option for maximum airflow and minimum plumbing??