Modern Vespa

I think it's safe to say we all love the smell of castor oil in 2 stroke engines.
Personally it's almost addictive. I've alway got my fix by adding a cap full of Castol R to my fuel tank. Just as a taster.

I've just read an article in a MX magazine about the pros and cons of castor oil.

Cons
They said ( now these are not my words as I'm no expert . So would love to hear your opinion )is that over long periods of use it can start to stick up valves etc and it doesn't like to be sat for long periods of time with no use.

Pros
Castor oil actually lubes the cylinder better as it doesn't burn away so easily. Especially in the case of higher temperature / stressed race engines.

Is this common knowledge as this is kind of what I've heard over as long as I can remember ?

The thing is they go on to list all the different castor oils. But point out that Maximo 927 castor oil has an additive ( not sure if this is a new thing or not ) that completely removes all the cons of running a castor oil. Its no longer gets sticky and can sit for long periods. So technically it should now be cool to run in scooters.
Very interesting I thought.
So I looked it up and there are lots of reviews from people ( in mainly the MX world but also a few Vespa riders but they were all premix ) who have actually used this oil over long periods and they report that there is no sign of any stickiness at all. So does this Maximo 927 mean that we can now really put it in our scooters without any issues at all ?

Has anyone tried it ? Any thoughts ?

The reason I'm trying to educate myself on this is I'm about to build a all singing all dancing 190 BGM engine and as it's a higher stressed engine wondered if I could run Castor oil properly . The only other query is that I'm going to run a 26 autolube carb. All the reviews were premix .So would like to be reassured that the non sticky oil will actually do what they promise and not glue up my carb ? As I like the idea of autolube over premix.

Yes - castor has a higher film strength and will gym things up as it burns dirtier. Don't use it. I've been running Motul for 37 years and nothing else

Yes that's what I've grown up thinking. But this new oil has additives that stop the gumming up. Hopefully that's correct . Things move on I guess.

I've just sent the manufacturers some questions asking if it would work with autolube

I'm tempted to give it a go as I'm stripping this engine down in 6-8 weeks. So could report back.

Thing is there's only a couple of cap fulls of the old oil left. Don't know if to just load it up with new or try to flush it out ?

Yes - the new stuff is much better. Use it if that's what you want to do. Smells nice for sure. Let us know your results. Cheers !

What do you think about cleaning the remains of the other oil first ?
Do you think it might could cause a problem.

So you're gonna rebuild in 6 to 8 weeks? How much do you ride in a week? If it was me, I'd just let it mix and go for it. But if it was my only transpo, I'd probably clean it out to almost nil before mixing. And quite frankly, if it was my only transportation, I'd stick with Motul.

I've been thinking about this....

It would be a non petroleum way to run the scooter. I wonder how it's being refined to have these new properties.

Let us know how it works out!

I ride weekends. It's not my only transport ,purely pleasure.So I have a bit of breathing space. I can't see what harm it will do to mix what's left.
I had concerns about it being thicker and how that would affect the autolube. If that might limit its flow. But at this moment in time I don't even know if it is thicker, it might not.

I think it's an additive.

Since you don't have valves, one of the cons goes away.

I have been using Klotz in my premix Stella without obvious negatives, but I'm not super consistent, if he Klotz bottle is empty I throw in Motul. Klotz smells so good.

Yea you're right. But I'm not running premix and I don't have injectors. So is the autolube free running enough not to get clogged up. If it would at all as the gumming problem might ( fingers crossed ) be solved. If it has then sure it gives us another oil choice that actually gives us better lubricant that can be used regularly.
The smell being a bonus.