Hi
As I mentioned in a previous post I picked up a banged up '98 ZX-6R recently and I'm trying to fix it up. So today after pulling all the fairings off of it I wanted to do some random maintenance. I did a couple of searches here about oil changes and it all seemed pretty straight forward from what I was able to find (I ordered a service manual but it's not gotten here yet).

Here are the basic steps I took. I put the rear arm on Jack stands, drained the oil, removed the filter, cleaned up the filer surface and surounding areas. This thing is absolutly filthy under the fairing. Put some oil into the new filter rubbed some used oil on the gasket and attached the filter. Reinstalled the drain plug with a new crush washer. Filled in 3.5 or so quarts (I know it will need more but didn't want to over fill it till it's level again). All seemed fine up to this point.

I put the cap back on and started her up. Everything sounded just like it did before the oil change the valves are a bit noisy but that was also the case before and will probably be the subject of another post. But the oil light would not go off. I waited about 15-20 seconds I tried to rev it just a tinny bit to about 2,500rpms and it had a little hesitation but I'm thinking that's more do to the 40' temps and no choke. Since there was not really any engine noise like it was starving for oil. I shut it off waited a minute and tried it again. After about 3 tries of this I finally left it off.

Now my question is do you have to prime something to get the oil pump to work again? Could this be a clogged sump screen? Do these bikes even have sumps or screens? Or is there an oil pressure sensor where I might have knocked the wire loose while trying to wipe all the crud off the engine?

Any suggestions are appreciated

 

Update:
I went back out and tried it again, still the same result it fires right up but oil light stays on. So I started looking around and I found the oil pressure sender unit. Pulled it out and oil leaked out so at least there is clean oil behind it.

I cleaned off the sender unit and tested it and it seems to be working fine. The circuit is closed when there is no pressure and as soon as you apply pressure it opens the circuit. I also tested the oil pressure light and it's working fine as soon as I ground out the lead the oil light goes off.

I'm a bit stumped here I would have definitely thought it would have primed the pump up by now. I don't really want to keep starting it because if there really is no oil moving up what ever light coating there was from running it before the oil change is probably not doing much good at this point.

Sorry I'm a bit out of my element with bike engines. So I'm not sure how the whole oil delivery system works in them. What's a good thing to check next?

Edit:
After doing a little more searching on here. I followed someones suggestion to loosen up the oil filter while the bike is ideling. I did this and the oil came oozing out it seemed to be under pressure because it came out on all sides of the filter including the top not just out of the bottom. But it did not seem to have a lot of pressure.

 

Disconnect the battery and reconnect, maybe it is just the sensor/light not resetting.

 

Thanks I'll try that next time I'm out in the Garage, although I don't think it will make much of a difference because the oil light will go out if I disconnect the wire from the sender unit. So the light is functioning as it should. But It can't hurt to try I guess.

 

It takes a while to build up pressure after an oil & filter change. Seems like a long time! I always fill the oil filter and let it sit then keep topping it off before installing it. It may take 20 seconds or more to get the light to go out. The oil pick-up tube takes some time to build up negative pressure (Vacuum) &fill up. Then the oil galleys must fill up and build pressure before the lightwill go out. I was concerned/ worriedthe first time I changed oil on my bike too.

 

hahaha, you will get it done BL

 

It's fixed. It seemed to have lot's of air in it.

 

That's what I figured the most likely cause was. Usually if it was working fine before the oil & filterchange, it just needs time to build up pressure.

 

These bikes are famous for that, they get an airlock between the oil pump and the filter, but there is a simple fix, next time this happens simply leave the bike running and loosen the oil filter slightly, you will here a gush of air come out, followed by oil, once oil starts coming out tighten the filter, i know it is a little messy but it is a lot easier on the bike than running without oil for a few minutes. Hope this works for you, it has always worked for me.

 

Yes, that lack of oil in the first few seconds/ minutes is critical! Always fill your oil filter, let it sit and refill after the oil settles, before installing it. This will be that much less oil required to fill before pressure is reached.