Oil and the Bermuda triangle

[haiiro99]

After changing the filter and oil in the pants off racer on Saturday, I appear to have stumbled onto a bit of a mystery.
The 4L of the translucent brown stuff I put in that afternoon has vanished into fat air..
There's no puddle under the bike, and the oil pressure light is off, but when I run it and let it sit (on the race stand) I can't see anything in the sight gauge.
I followed every procedure I could find; owner's manual for torques/ general instructions and forums for the bits in between the lines (pre-filling the filter and 'burping it', which I've since found out are redundant).
I let it sit overnight in the hope that it would bleed through and took the airbox off for a squiz this morning, but regardless, it's all gone.
Any ideas as to where it might be? Have I made a catastrophic stuff up or could it have burnt through somehow?
I'm going to get some more and top it up to see if that helps. Didn't want to do that before asking here in case someone was to say "did you remember to twuizzle the doohicky" which could end up fixing my problem.
Cheers

[tim]

Only thing I can think of is have you tried taking it OFF the race stand and propping it up straight sitting on level ground instead of the rear end up in the air?

[haiiro99]

Only thing I can think of is have you tried taking it OFF the race stand and propping it up straight sitting on level ground instead of the rear end up in the air?

Yup, did that this morning when I checked if it had settled over night.

[tim]

How did you measure the ammount you put in, and how did you know how much to put it? Could you not fill it up until it's in the sight glass in the first place then watch it and drain some if overfilled...... ?

[robracer]

You have not put enough oil in then.......with the bike sitting on the race stand keep filling until you spy the lever rising in the window then stop...... let it sit for a few minutes then resume filling until you hit the full line. let it run for a while, then let it sit again for about 1/2 hour to see where the level settles, top up accordingly..... no mystery! oh & you are filling from the oil filler?

[tim]

For my bike the service manual and users manual quotes 3 amounts of oil to use.

1. Oil change only.
2. Oil and filter change.
3. Completely dry engine.

From memory the amounts are 3.2L, 3.4L, 3.6L

[haiiro99]

Cheers guys. The sophisticated and calibrated measuring tool I used was the plastic container that the oil came in.
I had been watching the sight glass as I was filling it but did so in one hit and not over an hour or so with bits of running in between.
I'll get some more today and see how I go.

[robracer]

Cheers guys. The sophisticated and calibrated measuring tool I used was the plastic container that the oil came in.
I had been watching the sight glass as I was filling it but did so in one hit .

..... just slow down a little once you see the level rise this will keep you from overfilling.

[haiiro99]

Problem solved. To use a technical term, it needed a poofteenth more oil and my reliance of the precise, calibrated measuring tool that was plastic bottle the oil came in proved to be my failing.

[SLAC]

Thats funny....... Live and learn i guess

[Gosling1]

you won't see anything in the sight gauge when the engine is running - only when it is turned off.