cloudy oil inspection window

Any thoughts on why the oil inspection window on my '82 kz440 suddenly became cloudy? It seems to be clearing up, but I don't know why it happened or whether it's something ominous. thanks.

likely means you got some water in your oil. Change your oil, and when it's colder out make sure you go for long rides that let the oil get hot and evaporate the water out. Short rides in the cold = bad.

Far too many short rides. You need to put about 25-30 miles on a bike to get the engine oil to full temperature and burn off any condensation inside the engine. While some short trips are inevitable, try to push the bike longer and harder frequently - otherwise you are allowing the condensation to damage the internals with rust....

thanks, all.

You also need to change the oil more frequently:the condensation mixes with hydrogen byproducts to form acid which attacks metal parts. Modern oil has acid neutralizers but they get used up quick if you get water condensation a lot. This is also why "severe service" oil change intervals are sprcified at 3 months/3000 miles whichever comes first if you do a lot of short trips. It used to be called "taxi service" intervals. Oil is cheap, whenever it looks funny, dump it.

bountyhunter wrote:

You also need to change the oil more frequently:the condensation mixes with hydrogen byproducts to form acid which attacks metal parts. Modern oil has acid neutralizers but they get used up quick if you get water condensation a lot. This is also why "severe service" oil change intervals are sprcified at 3 months/3000 miles whichever comes first if you do a lot of short trips. It used to be called "taxi service" intervals. Oil is cheap, whenever it looks funny, dump it.

TOTALLY agree... on my turbo bike, I change oil AND filter every 500 miles... on my stock Z1A, every 1,000 miles...

I also run my fingers through the oil to see if I can feel anything in it. If I do find something I don't like, I chop open the oil filter to see what I can find. I had a broken cam chain guide on one bike I bought. The cam chain was chewing into the cylinder block and I found some very fine aluminum filings in the oil - and even more in the filter.

Jeff.Saunders wrote:

TOTALLY agree... on my turbo bike, I change oil AND filter every 500 miles... on my stock Z1A, every 1,000 miles...

I also run my fingers through the oil to see if I can feel anything in it. If I do find something I don't like, I chop open the oil filter to see what I can find. I had a broken cam chain guide on one bike I bought. The cam chain was chewing into the cylinder block and I found some very fine aluminum filings in the oil - and even more in the filter.

What brand and weight oil do you run? I've never dissected my oil filter before, seems like cheap insurance, I'm about due for an oil change. Thanks for the tip!