How to Change the Oil and Oil Filter on Your Motorcycle

Now this one is for people who maybe have never changed their own oil before. We've all been there lol don't worry or be embarrassed about not knowing how to change the oil. There are plenty of people who don't know.

My bike is a Suzuki DR200S, so it's a smaller engine, so it might be different from what you have to do if you've got a bigger bike.

I actually forgot to take pictures after I drained the oil, so I'm going to include a video of someone doing it at that point, sorry!

What you'll need:

Oil Filter and New Oil (a quart for my bike) I was also told not to use regular car engine oil, because it can screw up your clutch (don't know if that's entirely true but we'll go with that)

You're going to need a bike, I mean I'm just being honest here. You're going to want to warm the engine up a bit, take it around the block if you want, but remember, the longer you ride, the longer you'll have to wait because all that stuff is going to be hot and changing oil when everything hot is not fun. Warm, not hot.

Oil Drip Pan

This is your oil tank. Turn the twisty looking thing to loosen it to let air pass. You're going to need a socket with whatever size wrench fits on those three bolts where it says "Oil Filter" - mine uses 10mm

Loosen the filler plug like I said so you don't get compression on the other side when draining the oil. Careful! Might be hot.

Now, for my bike, the drain plugs needs a 17mm wrench so I'm using this one (most bikes will use metric wrenches - Suzuki = Japan so yeah)

This is the drain plug. Get your 17mm wrench and loosen it slowly, remember the oil will either be warm or hot if you did what I said. The plug will drop into the pan, which is fine, just take it out and clean it off with a dirty old rag.

Now your old oil will start to drain, this will take a while (3-5 minutes to drain fully). Remember to get on the bike and stand it upright if you don't have your bike perfectly straight up and down. Lean it from side to side slowly to make sure you get all of the old oil out.

That was the last picture I took, so I'm going to use this one from google to show you the old Oil filter

Use the 10mm (or whatever your owner's manual says) socket to take off the three plugs and remove the oil filter cover. You might have oil leak out as you do this, so have a rag ready.

Take out the old oil filter and throw it away

First clean out the cavity with a rag, you will probably have a small amount of excess oil there. Then, insert the new oil filter making sure the open part of it goes in first. You need to match the open part with where the oil gets filtered into the engine. This is easy. Close the cover and screw the plugs back on using your socket.

After all of the old oil has been drained out, put the drainplug (on the bottom of the engine) back on and screw it on tight with your 17mm wrench (or whatever it is for your bike), but not too tight. @corvo says: "Some good advice is never EVER overtighten the sump plug! It can bind to the metal because of the heat.." Good advice!

You're going to have to change the oil at some point again, so make sure you can get it off, but don't leave it too loose.

Now get your new quart of oil, screw off that cap I told you to loosen earlier. This is where you're going to add the new oil.Get a funnel and begin filling tank. Have a friend nearby to straighten the bike upright and watch the oil gauge level. You're going to want to to be between the low and full meter. You might have to stop before it full and start the engine up or wait until the new filter has absorbed some oil. Keep checking level until it's just right. I never have any oil leftover in the bottle.

(img. cite: http://blog.amsoil.com/tag/motorcycle-lift/)

Screw on the cap and tighten

Start up the bike and check for leaks. If you tightened everything correctly, you shouldn't have any.

You can funnel the old oil into the bottle and I think you can recycle it at any place that does oil changes (Walmart, for example).

You're done! Hooray! You just saved yourself about $100! The total cost for oil and filter was ~$15 so feel great that you did something yourself! Get on that sucker and ride because it's going to feel really smooth.

This little gem was the video that I watched to learn how to do what I just explained to you, so thank you to "blancolirio" on Youtube!

Hope you found this educational, and thanks for stopping by!

@vegansilverstack