I'm using the heavy oil at the moment (for hot places) and it's too thick (cos I'm currently in a cold place). I don't want to go through the hassle and expense of buying the real thing so I thought I'd go the chain oil option. Any idea of the right chainsaw oil I should use? or will it all do?

cheers
Brett

Although I think they make sense for use in your home environment, I would never use one on a trip. You get lulled in to a false sense of security and don't check the chain and sprockets. If I hadn't been lubing the chains every day I wouldn't have noticed the fact that my wifes new O-ring chain had stretched so much in one day that it had started to erode the engine casing, in the middle of Patagonia!!

I have a dual injector Scotty on my KLR650, and i think it's great. The dual injector was a bit tricky to install (and I lost one nozzle to a sprocket bolt when reversing, on my first attempt at installation). I find that I watch the oiler and chain on a daily basis anyway, but the difference is that now, I just need to have a peek, and normally no other action is required (as oppopsed to actually having to oil on a daily basis). Every few days, I needed to top up the reservoir, which is a trivial task. If you need to re-prime the system (only required first time around, or if the reservoir runs dry) don't forget to reset the valve from "prime" afterwards though, or else the oiler will promptly dump the entire reservoir's contents all over the chain, rear wheel, and possibly the brake discs and pads! I did this (hey, I'm not perfect!), and it caused a big dirty mess that caused people to approach me to ask me if I knew that the bike had a serious oil leak!

I can understand why people doing dirt / sand routes don't use oilers.. that stands to reason.. sand + oil = nice abrasive paste.

For an O ring / X ring, oiling *is* recommended to keep the rubber o-rings soft. If the seals harden, the internal lubrication is lost, and chain life suffers. If the o-rings harden, it also causes a lot of resistance, which eats your mpg (kmpl) and your power.

In Canada you can buy winter or summer grade chainsaw chain oil .
I generally use winter grade because it flows easily .
You could mix in some parrafin or diesel to thin yours out a bit and make it flow better .


Of the spray on chain lube ,I have found PJ1 to be much better than the others.

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