Oil Warning Light on my F800GS - Possible solutions

[ReaperMan]

Hi All

Had an interesting issue yesterday.

I was driving the bike through some loose sand, staying mainly in first or second gear when my oil light starts flickering. Stop, get off, get out the little bookie and it notes that it is a low oil pressure indicator and that the bike should get to BMW ASAP.

Check oil, there is enough of it. Switch bike on, no light. Drive another hundred meters or so, light back.

Google is your friend.

According to https://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=571809 it turns out that the light also goes on when the bike gets hot and cannot start the fan. Since it was quite toasty outside and I've been driving slowly, it made sense. The link contains an entire thread going into more details.

Sure enough, manually turning the fan and unstucking it, it came on after the bike was idling for about 5 minutes. And most importantly the oil warning light has not turned up since.

So I'm posting this useful information here if anyone else is interested and because I couldn't find any of it on here

One of three things are occurring when the oil light is flashing while the engine is on.

1: the oil pressure sensor, wiring, CAN bus, or a computer has gone insane. I have seen the computer freak out before and have also seen an oil pressure sensor go bad.

In this case, everything is ok and engine will sound fine. If it is just a random and rare seizure of a computer, turning the key off and on usually resets it.


2: the computer has sensed abnormal current draw from the cooling fan. This will mean that the fan is stuck, shorted, unplugged, or open circuit.

This does not mean the bike is overheating, it mearly means it is at the temperature the fan is called for and the fan is not running for some reason.

Usually this is caused by mud or rocks behind the radiator in the fan shroud blocking the fan blades from rotating.

If you continue to ride, usually load and induced wind through the radiator is enough to continue to cool the engine so that it does not overheat, so the gauge will show normal and the temperature and the temperature warning light will not illuminate.

If you stop and idle for a while, or if your going slow enough or whatever, that the engine does start to overheat, the gauge will rise and show this and if the engine gets really close to boiling over, the temperature light will illuminate.


3: you have low or possibly even no engine oil pressure.

If this happens repetitively at idle, but not above idle, your oil is too thin, clearances in the engine are loose, your oil pump(s) are failing, or a gasket where the oil pick-up or pressurized oil way goes through is blown, or your oil is foamed.

This is URGENT and will generally be accompanied by the rattle your engine makes for a second after start-up which is the cam chain slapping before oil fills the cam chain tensioner damper.

This condition is cause to immediately stop and check oil level, look in the oil dipstick tube and see if the oil is foamed, check if the oil is water or gasoline contaminated, think back to your last oil change, has it been a zillion miles or did you decide to check if 0w/20 was thick enough oil?

If the oil is foamed and low, adding some will do the trick.

If the oil is foamed and once the foam melts is high, draining some will help.

If the oil is contaminated, changing it will do the trick if you went through a water crossing that was too high, otherwise changing it will buy some time to get somewhere to find out what's up with the cooling or fuel infection system.

If you put to light weight of oil in at the last change, change to a good quality 10w/40 at your earliest convenience.


If you lack tools or expertise, this is a good time for a tow. If you just rode past a shack in the middle of the Forrest that smelled strongly of chemicals and now some meth cooks are chasing you in an old pickup, ride like a demon, nothing is likely to explode if the oil light is off above idle.


If your oil light is on above idle and it's not the cooling fan, sensor, or some other false warning, your engine is Likely going to explode. If you can hear your cam chain rattle at idle and your oil warning continues to flash above idle, your engine us definantly going to explode.

Check for holes in your oil pan, but otherwise you can't fix this in the feild.

 

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[ReaperMan]

 

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