Aftermarket Gauze filters for Zanes

G

ghwallice

Hero member
Location
Ipswich
So you want to use a gauze hi flow filter on your Zane??? It improves oil flow to the crank as we all know.

Slight problem. Crank doesn't need more oil to it. It needs more oil away from it to transfer the heat out..

I pushed a crank apart yesterday. Cam chain tensioner, probably too tight, had broken off at the end. Cam chain ran on the inside front of the casings, created fine alloy particles picked up by the oil pump, NOT filtered by the "filter", pumped into the crank, and tore the surface off the big end pin.

A filter modification to a Zane to protect a crankshaft that actually allowed a crankshaft to be destroyed when there was another issue???

Murphy's Law has a transistor in a circuit to protect a fuse......

 
Possibly a salutary warning to all us Zane owners with alternative ?filters? fitted. However, I tend to only use them on bikes I use on track or ride very hard, but will keep my fingers crossed....
 
All may not be what it seems with the gauze filters.
The inventor of the idea was John Baines, who developed the super fast Baines Racing 750 Formulas.  These bikes suffered persistent crank failures and John observed signs of overheating and cooked oil in the failed big ends.  He then came up with the filter blanking plate and was convinced it made things better by improving oil flow and in particular making it steadier.  The Laverda factory at the time was unconvinced and their engineers disagreed that this was a good idea.
But the legend was born and John thinks the bikes were more reliable with it.  Like Laverda I?m not convinced and so I run a standard filter on my road bike (which is a 668 and so not one that Baines ever ran), however like Andy I hedge my bets and run a blanking plate on my race bike, together with heavy Rock oil TRM.

A filter mod can?t make your big ends round, and I buy into the theory that this is the key issue.
 
I've used magnetic sump plugs in all my bikes for the last 30+ years, they usually come out looking like bumblebees so they're at least getting quite a bit of the ferrous stuff out of circulation which has to help.
 
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