low oil-level; damage?

[Cookie]

coming back from a 500km trip I apparently managed to run the oil-level of my Rd07a below the dipstick. Oil pressure light did not light up, though. Although I don't really believe that this caused damage, any comforting words from knowledgeable folks would be appreciated

Cheers

Chris

[AlanH]

As long as oil pressure was maintained, you should get away with running below the dipstick. Ultimately, it depends how low it got as the remaining oil will have been given a really hard time. I'd give it an oil change and see how it goes from there.

[Boris]

I ran my CBR600 off the bottom of the window after thrashing up the A1 one night 104 miles in 55 minutes and mostly single carriageway. It took a couple of pints of oil when I got back but suffered no long term ill effects.

I'm sure you will be fine

[jarl]

I've run mine low twice now. Firstly I just didn't check the level. I can't recall how much it took, but enough to make me worried I'd caused damage. Second time was when I had a bad oil leak from off-road and there was one big hill between where I was and my house which I REALLY didn't want to push the alp up. She still runs lovely though. Does use oil but doesn't smoke- I think the oil level drops because she still leaks a bit from the off-road incident, but it's impossible to say.

Fill her up, and she'll almost certainly be fine. Firstly, it's a honda, secondly, it's in such a soft state of tune you'd have to work a lot harder than that to damage it!! (But do check regularly in future!!)

[Cookie]

Thanks guys. What really ticks me off is that I´m somewhat meticulous about checking the oil and I would never have expected that this would happen to me. I topped her off and she´s running fine; oil change is up over the weekend.

Thanks again,
Chris

[andrerav]

Last year I ran my queen a little low on oil on a 2000km trip (1240 miles). I could literally feel how she became a little harsh on the clutch and more noisy when changing gear. She became good as new as soon as I topped up with a bottle of premium oil (1 litre/2 pints) and I finished the season with no problems. I did an oil+filter change earlier this spring, and the oil looked quite good despite all the hardship. Installed a new sump plug with neodymium magnet as well this time.

As I told myself; don't worry, and don't do it again (:

Edit: also, I think it's better to slightly overfill on these bikes anyway?