Dimple Drain Plugs

Hi I'm Bob LaRosa, and welcome to "Fix My Hog." I wanna take some time and demonstrate a fantastic product. The Dimple motor oil drain plug. It's magnetic, it's meant to pick up the debris, the particulate matter that is suspended in your engine oil or your primary fluid or your transmission fluid. Harley-Davidson motorcycles and many other motorcycle brands and applications across the industry. In fact, Dimple Products are veteran-owned, made in the USA product, can be found on a multitude of applications, including the military howitzer weapon.

It's used as a magnetic drain plug to catch the fluid, the suspended particles in the hydraulic fluid system on that particular application. Back to Harley-Davidsons. The Dimple Product magnet itself is a much better grade. On a scale of 1 to 25, the rare-earth-style magnet known as neodymium, or neodymium, you can pronounce it as you please, is one of the most powerful magnets commercially available. Dimple Products use these magnets exclusively, and they use a high-temperature magnet.

The factory-style magnet on the factory drain plug typically withstands heat to about 175 degrees. The Dimple Products drain magnet itself has epoxy good, or the magnet itself is good to about 300 degrees. When it comes to testing the magnet, the Dimple Product, the motor oil magnet itself, the plug that they make, is about 1,500 times stronger than the factory magnet. And that's easy to demonstrate. You can see the factory magnet will just about lift the 10-millimeter wrench, but it certainly won't even touch the three-quarter-inch wrench.

When you get into the Dimple Product magnet, now, this is the direct replacement for the factory-style plug. You can see the backs are identical. I myself always prefer to use the hex portion of the drain plug. I don't like the Allen portion in the factory plug. Dimple does have a recess, but again, always use the hex.

This particular Dimple plug is of the SS family of Dimple Products. It doesn't stand for stainless steel. It stands for super seal. It has a 15-degree taper, which eliminates the need for any type of sealer or Teflon tape. The O-ring is secondary only on this application, which means it never needs to be replaced.

The plug itself does the sealing. Great product. I've done a lot of modifications, a lot of performance work, a lot of customizing to Harley-Davidsons over the years, but every now and again, a great product, it'll just catch your eye, and you'll find that there's so many great applications for it. I wanna get down to basics. What is the need for a magnetic drain plug?

Why do I have debris floating around in my suspended, floating around in suspended animation in the fluids in my motorcycle? Harley-Davidson, we obviously have, most models have three separate compartments, your engine, which includes engine oil and filter, your transmission, and then your primary. On the Sportster models, yes, the primary and transmission are consolidated, but it doesn't rule out the fact that things do wear due to friction, due to improper maintenance will accelerate wear, sometimes up to 70%, you'll knock 70% of the life out of a component, not necessarily the entire machine. And a lot of people ask me, "Well, where is all this debris coming from?" Primarily, brand new components in any application, the parts have to bed in as it's known in the industry. You can say they're wearing in, some will argue that things are wearing out.

It's kind of irrelevant when it comes to eliminating the particulate matter from two wear components due to friction, due to improper maintenance, whatever the cause. The thing is to capture it, that's why there's an oil filter on the engine. Perfect example. But unfortunately, in our Harley world, we don't have filters on the transmission or the primary. Now, the transmission, I just wanna go into it briefly.

Our Harley-Davidson transmissions, four speed, five speed, six speed, have always been what they call constant mesh. It's gear-to-gear all the time, it's powered in and out on the same axis. What you have is, in essence, is a rock crusher. And just by design, you're gonna get frictional wear of the gear, of the sliding dogs of the shaft, et cetera, et cetera. You can talk about every component in the transmission, and I'm starting with the transmission because in my opinion, it's one of the highest weared components on the Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

And it doesn't have a filter, obviously. Very important to try to capture as much of the particulate matter, the wear matter, in the fluid to the drain plug and remove it from the compartment of fluid, the transmission compartment every time you change your fluids. Transmission gears themselves, I hear a lot of people talk about gear shedding, dog shedding of the transmission gears. There's a lot of terms out there, but again, being a constant mesh design, the transmission is a high-wear component. Maintenance on it is minimal, but fluid replacement is critical.

You need to keep your transmission fluid clean, and there are a lot of high-end full-synthetic fluids that claim you can run a certain amount of miles. And that's all fine and well, they've been tested. Again, environmental conditions, extreme hot, extreme cold riding conditions. You know, riding a bike, lugging a transmission on a Harley-Davidson is probably just as bad as over-winding it or winding it up tight. Again, back to the debris field.

When you remove it on the Dimple-style magnetic plug, you'll notice that there's more particulate matter than you've ever seen on a stock plug. That's due to the high-strength, high-temperature magnet used by Dimple Products. And they do make plugs to fit every access hole on the Harley-Davidson motorcycle, including the V-rod. When it comes to the primary, and Dimple Products does make a perfectly designed primary plug. Direct replacement, there's no torques in the end of it, it's a hex head design.

Fits perfect, seals perfect, high-temperature, high-strength magnet in your primary. Reason for that, again, the primary chain and the compensating sprocket is metal-to-metal. Even though they're running a bath of oil, the oil still sustains temperatures, extreme temperature changes sometimes, depending on riding conditions, riding style, but it does shed material. That dual-role chain, the primary chain, running against the front drive gear on the compensating setup and the clutch basket, the drive gear, is always under constant load and constant pressure when you're riding. There is a certain wear factor.

Fluids have evolved greatly. I'm talking from mineral base to full synthetics, but the Dimple Product magnetic motor oil magnet drain plug, which again, on the Harleys is gonna include primary fluid, transmission fluid, is a product that's not only gonna extend the life of your motorcycle, but it's also gonna capture that particulate matter that's suspended in the fluid and keep the fluid cleaner longer and extend the lifespan of the particular application. Magnetic drain plugs from the factory, it's a lower-grade rare earth magnet. By strength, it's minimal to the Dimple Product. The epoxy is very susceptible to being overheated.

I have seen all three, in fact, the engine oil, the primary, and the transmission magnet, separate from the factory drain plug. In some cases, I've had to chase the magnet around to get it out. You know, in one particular case, an FL-style model using this particular oil pan, which is transmission and engine oil, the transmission just comes from the case and drops down through. The factory magnet came loose and we had to remove the pan to get the magnet away from the base. Now, you wouldn't think you'd wanna stick to the aluminum pan, but it was floating around in its own little let's say pea-sized ball of debris in the base of the pan.

On a motorcycle, when it's due for its first service, which to me is the most critical service, you're gonna get a fair share of debris, and whether, you've gotta go by factory-recommended service, most are 500 miles, some are 1,000 miles. That initial service is the most critical service. It's when you will see the majority of the debris, so to say, from assembly come out of the engine, come out of the transmission, come out of the primary. These are critical times when the Dimple Product magnet, the drain plug magnet, needs to be installed. I myself, as soon as I get my hands on a new bike, I love putting the Dimple Product in these new Milwaukee-Eight engines 'cause myself, by design, as long as you're able to keep things clean, your fluids clean, the system, so to say, clean, I think that engine's gonna run an extremely long time.

It's gonna dwarf the change in longevity between any other generation of Harley-Davidson engine. So with the assistance of Dimple Products, I think it can only benefit the longevity of the newest-designed engine. On that topic, the Dimple Product drain plugs cover a broad span of Harley products, way back to the pans, to the shovels. You've just gotta watch your thread configuration, I'm sure you can get the correct plug. Not only has technology evolved when it comes to engine design, but metallurgy itself has evolved.

The machining process has evolved. Years back, I know the machining process for making transmission gears, for example, the gears were ground, stone-ground, off of a magnetic table. It was acceptable way to machine something, but it left magnetism on the finished product on the gear, was very hard to clean. And there's a bunch of articles out there about it, I'm sure if you research, you can find 'em. The problem was you introduced magnetized particulate, ferrous-based debris, into the brand new product, into the brand new oil.

So whether your motorcycle's 20 years old or 2 years old, now's the time to start to capture as much of the debris, the ferrous-based particulate matter, floating or suspended in your fluid. Dimple Product, the only way to go about that in the correct way, not only thread fitment, but by far the superior magnetism of the magnet used on this style drain plug. I wanna do a quick demo. The strength of the Dimple magnet versus the factory magnet. You can see by design, they are identical.

The Dimple SS-style drain plug has the 15-degree taper, which causes a perfect seal on the thread surface, no Teflon paste or Teflon tape needed. The O-ring never needs to be replaced. The factory magnet. You can just about get that 10-millimeter wrench up. You can see as I even get close with the Dimple magnet how strong it is.

It'll actually draw the wrench to it. This is the type of product you want collecting the wear that you create when you're riding your motorcycle. And things are gonna wear, they may wear a lot less with proper fluids, but I'll guarantee you, they wear as least, as less as possible with the Dimple Product, with the Dimple magnetic drain plug. Three-quarter-inch wrench. Again, you'll see it wants to draw the weight of the wrench.

And why is that so important? The stronger the matter, the more ferrous-based particulate matter it can collect. The factory magnet won't even touch the three-quarter-inch wrench. And it's not just one, I've got a few factory-style magnets that they're just, they're acceptable, they are magnetized, but why not use a better product if there's a better product available? Same will apply with their primary plugs.

And you can see this plug I just took out of a running unit. You can see the fine material that it's collected, the factory plug does its job, but it's limited by the strength of the magnet that they use. Same will apply with this particular demonstration. The factory magnet, you'll be lucky if it'll hold itself to the 10-millimeter wrench. It certainly won't pick it up.

But the Dimple Product, it really, it's got a bite on it. The magnets are superior. The plug design is superior. The product is superior. I hate to keep dwelling on the same topics, but when you find a product that takes your maintenance to a whole new level, and that's what "Fix My Hog" is all about, is our own maintenance.

The drain plug, the magnetic drain plug. Let's call it the window or the eye into how your components are functioning, how they're wearing in, wearing out, bedding in, how much heat, how much frictional loss or wear you may be experiencing. As a motorcycle, in general, gets mileage on it, the entire wearing in or bedding process should start to diminish. The debris field you should see off of the components on the magnetic drain plug should start to at least level out. And we're not talking about, when I talk about particulate matter, ferrous-based magnetic particulate matter, I'm not talking about pieces or chunks.

If you're getting pieces or chunks off of any drain plug, it's probably, you probably are already feeling it in the mechanical operation. You know, a lot of times I'll drop engine oil, and I'll see a lot of, you'll get a brass shimmer around the outside edge of the fluid in a clean pan, and especially on older bikes. And I'll get talking with the owner and he'll be, "Yeah, I can experience a little knocking noise," which is commonly rod knock, you know, at a certain RPM or under hard acceleration. At that point, obviously, you've got a mechanical failure ready to happen. When it comes to basic maintenance, to be able to remove whatever wear material is there during regular scheduled intervals of maintenance is critical.

Again, the Dimple Product does that. By design, it's superior. And in practical application, it's function. It's by far superior to not only the factory magnetized drain plug, but any other product I've come across. I took the time and actually climbed into or I should say drained into the waste oil tank for the shop.

In here is debris that collected in that drum. And I wanna show you a big difference in how the Dimple drain plug attracts the ferrous particulate matter and holds it. You wanna be able to capture any and all wear matter on the drain plug and remove it when you do regular scheduled maintenance. The factory plug, I can't even get it to stick to anything. One last thing I do wanna discuss is the oil filter.

Not that Dimple Products manufactures oil filters, not yet anyways, but the fact that they manufacture what they call the Super Black Hole Magnet for the oil filter. Now typically, a good Harley-Davidson oil filter filtered on about 10 microns. A micron is a millionth of a meter. When you're talking particulate matter, you start taking out of an engine particulate matter under or around 10 microns in size by gram, things are wearing excessively. But it's not unusual, again, to drop a drain plug after a good, long, hard, hot, rough season or scheduled maintenance interval and pick up some debris.

The oil filter, you can't see what's going on inside. All you do is depend on the fact that the filter's doing its job. Dimple Products, by designing the Super Black Hole Magnet, what it is, it's four separate magnets. And being a rare-earth high-strength magnet, they're pretty difficult to separate. And it's a real simple installation.

All you're gonna do is install 'em to the outside of the oil filter, pick up four sides, four corners of the filter. And you can hear they grab onto it, you don't need to worry about 'em going anywhere. And what these magnets are gonna do is assist the oil filter in doing its job. So instead of that particulate matter embedding into the filter material, it allows that ferrous particulate matter to collect to the Super Hole Black Magnet during the operation of the engine, when the matter is suspended in the oil and getting filtered. Dimple Products, superior.

Do some research, go buy 'em, put 'em into proper application. You'll be glad you did.