The Loobman chain oiler - 15 months on

[Flyingpony]

Edit #1: 20/06/2005: This is my first product review and is my 100th post!
Edit #2: 28/06/2005: Added more comments regarding D.S.D head.
Edit #3: 28/06/2005: Added tools required.
Edit #4: 08/07/2005: Minor adjustments made after three weeks usage.



LOOBMAN: simplicity saving you time, money and chain life!

Loobman - http://www.chainoiler.co.uk/
Price (includes postage): £18.99 - I bought during a special @ £16.99 (~NZ$46)
Estimated D.I.Y install time: 2.5hrs (took my time)
Delivery time: 8 business days from UK (ordered on Sunday, 2nd Wednesday it arrived).
Sorry: don't own a digital camera so no pictures.

Required tools:
Hot water for softening up the plastic tubing.
Sharp pliers for cutting metal wire and zip ties (I used two - one with cutting blade and another with long nose).
Sharp knife for cutting plastic tubing.
Small battery drill with 5.5mm bit if you make the same modification I did.



After having lost the factory RK chain and sprockets at under 10k because of the spray on o-ring safe chain wax, it was time for something better - an oiler.

After checking out and eliminating many products due to their features, size, install requirements, price, or lack of a dual sided delivery head, the winner was Loobman. [The Scottoiler was priced a mini fortune at $280 (Universal Kit-£69.95 + Dual Injector-£19.95 + Postage-£19.95)].

The week following unit purchase my new toy was here! After a quick flick through the 4-page instruction manual and ensuring the kit was complete, next thing to do was wait for new chain/sprockets to be fitted.

Weeks ticked by and then finally one Friday - new chain and sprockets.

Spread over the following weekend and in between other mandatory bike maintenance duties, the Loobman got installed and on very first attempt the dual sided delivery (D.S.D) head oiled both sides of the rear sprocket, the chain and my garage floor.

The D.S.D Head uses the ends of two tiny zip ties for guiding oil onto the rear sprocket - rest of zip tie is used to attach these onto D.S.D Head. Given the quantity of zip ties supplied, there's no need to buy replacements immediately after the first set wears out and because zip ties are common enough, your local hardware/electrical store should stock them for a few dollars. They’re a cheap and easy to replace consumable item.

Constructing and fitting the Loobman isn't difficult. Assembling the D.S.D head was simple, fitting the oil reservoir bottle to the pillion foot peg was straight forward, but fitting the metal wire used for supporting the D.S.D head onto the swing arm required plenty of patience and two pliers for bending. Do triple check before you bend the wire. Avoids repositioning your bend 5mm to the side or in the opposite direction!
Fitting the various sized plastic tubing with an air temperature of 8-degrees was impossible because they refused to slide into each other. That required a venture into the kitchen for a cup of hot water.

As the Loobman allows usage of any oil of choice and having just switched brands and hence onto a lighter winter weighted value oil, I've got 800ml of fully synthetic 15w-50 motorcycle engine oil for exclusive Loobman use. Did find filling the oil reservoir bottle tricky because of it's tiny opening but filling won't happen frequently, maybe every two to four months estimated by my current oil consumption rate.

Given the Loobman only requires Mother Earth Gravity, there's no wiring loom to cut or a carburettor to drill into. By mounting the bottle directly above the chain, getting the tube to run continuously downhill was a breeze and required only about 30cm of tubing between bottle and D.S.D head. The tubing zigzags through a gap in the chain guard and I've used a plastic zip tie to ensure it doesn't accidentally meet the nearby chain.

With the catchment chamber being positioned 2-3cm away from the rear wheel, it will get water/muck splashed onto itself when the road is wet. To counter this I've made one modification by attaching an E2 sports water bottle cap over the top of the catchment tube and forced the oil reservoir feed tube through it (first drill a 5.5mm hole).

The Loobman is a simple gravity feed system, so if you squeeze too much or ride not enough, oil will continue to flow after your ride has finished until the tubing and D.S.D head are empty. Have given thought about adding a mini 4mm garden sprinkler tap into the system, but the tubing is empty at my destination so any excess oil is therefore coming from what's still inside the D.S.D head - not much I can do about that besides trying to squeeze for less oil. There is no concept of oil drops per minute, all the oil flows out immediately until it's dry and will then require the rider to recharge the system. For me this isn't a problem, 99% of riding is commuter based. For long distant riders, fitting a segment of smaller tubing will make the oil exit slower.

After one week of service, the Loobman works great. The chain appears to have a nice thin evenly spread oil film coating. Actually some other sections of the bike are oil spotted too, namely; rear wheel, chain guard, and WOF holder mounted on rear of number plate. Never mind.

You get what you pay for, the Loobman is a great system for the price paid and I look forward to the benefits of a well oiled chain and hopefully this will translate into a long extended chain life.

All pictures are from Loobman website or their email correspondence:
The bike picture is a Suzuzki SV 650 S; this what my install is based on and looks like.
The other two pictures detail how the D.S.D Head looks like and how it should be positioned relative to the rear sprocket.


After three weeks of usage:

• The rear sprocket and chain are always covered in a nice layer of oil, even the o-rings are!
• Reduced the length of tubing between bottle and D.S.D head because noticed when sitting/riding on bike, a segment of tubing effectively goes horizontal, reduces oil flow rate. By removing 3cm, all the oil is now distributed beyond the D.S.D Head after travelling 5km.
• To reduce the amount of oil dispatched per squeeze and hence drip at destination, cut a few mm off the bottle feeder pointy tip.
• To catch any excess oil after parking, made a tiny clip on catcher from the base of a shampoo container. This clip on gets positioned just about where the chain meets sprocket. Function over fashion because it's bright white.

[wari]

NIce werk and post mate ...

I Gotta loobman too ... .. ack-tually I Bought 5 forda price of 4 ... justin case I Needed morren one a-tempt ... I LIke to think a-head ...

BUttt upon in-stall I LOstta couple-a my plierrs overr da naye-boors fence ..

OH Yeah ... some-how the tube and wirre gott tangled up inda chain and back sprockett feerst up test ..

SOrrted now tho' ... mate came a-round and diditt ..

[Silage]

I installed a Loobman oiler to the 1200 a few weeks back alos. Am pleased with it so far. Not hard to remember to give it a squeeze before a (long enuf) run. I made up a new bracket to hold the delivery head wire in place as it looked very fiddly to do it how the instructions say. Will post a pic when its day time.

I am using straight SAE50 (chainsaw bar oil) as it takes its time to get thru the feed line and hopefully won't fling off too much. Seems to work. The bracket thingy that the reservoir bottle fits in is good as it allows easy release to let yo fill the bottle off the bike.

Overall however I reakon it would be dead easy to build one from bits. Just need a way to deliver a slug of oil into a tube that gravity feeds above the chain. A fancy one could split to drop oil onto each side of the chain. But then the 16 quid is cheap enuf and the concept is worth supporting.

[Silage]

Pics below show the reservoir bottle strapped to the faring frame beside the dash and the second is the business end showing the custom head holder (short length of bar with a nut welded to it with the head wire passing through the base of the nut). Holder allowed me to use an existing nut on the swing-arm and it holds it well.

At the oiler head, the oil runs down two plastic strips that run one each side of the main sprocket. It is all too simple.

[XTC]

I'm gonna get one...... I see if you buy 3 you get one free.... Anyone else want one??

[Silage]

This is a bit of a (bump) update

After the glowing remarks I made a wee while back, I have a little negative comment to balance this up. I have only done a few hundred ks since installing the oiler and found that the plastic strips that convey the oil to the sprocket have both worn off and are about 5mm shorter than before and quite clear of the sprocket. It might be how I mounted the head but it seems ok. Will replace them and keep an eye on it.

[XTC]

1200 km's on mine so far and no wear on the strips. Instructions are all over the place but easy enough to follow after reading them a few times. Pics show tubing down the outside of the swing arm. I have since re-routed it to the inside of the swingarm ensuring a more consistant fall to the head. You'd not even know it's there now. You do have to be careful removing and reinstalling the wheel. I have founf it best to remove the head from it's bracket before removing the wheel.

[Flyingpony]

It’s been installed on my bike for some 15 months now, and I'm very impressed with this NZD$50 purchase (www.chainoiler.co.uk). It's so simple, operates so flawlessly and requires so little maintenance.

Here is a link to my original Loobman thread.

During these past 15 months it has operated without any major hassles and operating costs have been minimal. (Mine is mounted on the left passenger foot peg with a short hose running down through one of the chain guard gaps to reach the D.S.D head mounted on inside of swing arm).

Just last month both of the original zip-tie tips used to distribute oil onto the rear sprocket were replaced and during the past 15 months it has applied some 300-400ml engine oil onto chain.

Oil fling is minimal once I learnt how much oil can be safely applied per squeeze and how to read when the chain requires more oil. For the record, I've never suffered tyre traction loss or rear brake fade due to over oiling.

Have noticed that the oiler can become self-excited under certain conditions, these are:
- Be careful when mounting helmet on seat lock, it can push on the oil bottle reservoir.
- Best keep oil bottle more than half full because temperatures swinging more than 10degrees or parking in front of A/C units, means it'll expel oil due to the air inside the bottle expanding/contracting.

Every second time the chain gets cleaned with kero, the D.S.D head is removed and washed,,, there,,, excluding replacing the zip-tie tips, all the required maintenance is done.

Because it's using inexpensive zip-ties to deliver the oil onto both sides of the rear sprocket, there is no risk of oil flow getting blocked and should the assembly happen to move causing excessive wear, they're easy to replace and easy to obtain from the hardware store.

The oil currently being applying to the chain is Shell Advance 4 Fully Synthetic bike oil. It flows nice & quickly and seems to do the trick. Being able to pick any oil for use in the Loobman is outstanding; it's not tied to a particular brand or grade. When this left over old oil is gone, think I'll buy some cheap mineral stuff.

The fitted o-ring chain is looking mint and should have a long life. The sprockets also look mint.

So, do I have any spray on chain-wax at home: Yes.
Is it new or used: Both, have two spray-cans.
Brand: Don't know but the spray can is that popular golden coloured one.
Have I touched them recently: Yes
And why: Because they were standing in front of my car wash-n-wax bottle.

Would I buy the Loobman again: Yes.
Would I consider replacing it with the Scott Oiler: No.

So there you go, a good all round product, worth purchasing.

[ogr1]

I concur......bought one of these two weeks ago, fiddly, but not half as much as the other well known brand.
Two weeks down the line, I'm impressed.
Once you get the hang of a gentle squeeze every 100/150 miles or so, this simple, but very effective device sorts itself out and let's you get on with the ride.
Early days yet, but I have noticed that if the weather warms up and the oil that is left in the trap (at the point of no return) will dump a small amount of oil on the floor, directly where the plastic ties lock onto the sproket when parked up.
On the whole a very simple, cheap & effective piece of kit, and no... I don't work for "Loobman".

[Pixie]

The oil currently being applying to the chain is Shell Advance 4 Fully Synthetic bike oil. It flows nice & quickly and seems to do the trick.

That's overkill.
It's chain lubrication for god's sake.Use warehouse 20w40

I use 20w40 with 25% kero...keeps things nice and clean.

Let me know when you get sick of the manual system and want to upgrade to a pixie oiler

[xsive-rider]

i think it looks bloody ugly!!!
wouldn't want that on my bike.
surely theres gotta be a better system than this?

[xsive-rider]

were can i get a pixie oiler. i think that other systems looks homemade & ugly.
would not want that on my bike unless it was an old rat bike..LOL

[Ixion]

were can i get a pixie oiler. i think that other systems looks homemade & ugly.
would not want that on my bike unless it was an old rat bike..LOL

From a pixie of course. I still intend to get one , I have just been delayed by the miserable incompetance of the IRD

[HungusMaximist]

This is an old thread that I digged up but I need other people's opinion on Loobman compared to the other stuff at the moment going for 5 to 6 times the price of Loobman.

Seeing it's only $50 bucks and that it could save your sprockets and chains ($200-$300) , I reckon it's a friggin worthy investment.

Any stories you'd like to share?

[Morcs]

I disagree.

Lubing you chain when you should ( I do every 2 weeks ) keeps my chain and sprockets pretty good.