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Oil change frequency


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IMO, don’t be a dick. Change the oil as per the manufacture’s specs. Use the correct grade and specification, as in the motor handbook, or, in some cases, a technical update provided by the manufacturer. Not the word of someone on a forum. Or your dealer. Or your mate.

The manufacturer has a vested interest in reputation, and make nothing from your oil change, unless you buy their branded products.

Most manufacturers say every 1-200 hours, OR annually. Read the book! Change the filters every time.

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Be very careful using synthetic oil. Ow (?w) is a great idea on modern automotive engines as it is basically "water" when you first start up and lubricated quickly (where most engine wear takes place) but it will start leaking out of your seals on some engines which are designed to run on standard 30 weight mineral oil.

Mate' has some good info in his post.

Synthetics have changed a lot over the years. The viscosity of Synth Oils are exactly the same...err...actually, more precise than plain mineral oil. Modern Synth Oils are more about stability than the yesteryear falicies of our oil is more slippery that the other guys. Which brings me to the point of,

NEVER NEVER NEVER

add an additive to lube Oil unless you have a very specific reason and understanding of what you want to achieve with the additive.

Back to Synths. These Oils are made from very high quality base stock Mineral Oil. They are then modified to become very stable and usually able to handle very high heat vs plain mineral. They also modify the Elasto Polymer strength of the Oil. This is the ability to maintain a film to hold metal bits apart. A few of the top Synth oils are measured at over 100,000PSI in strength.

 

A slight aside, if you have some grease in the shed, go and place a blob of it on a metal plate or vice or something you can smack with a hammer. then do exactly that. If you get covered in grease, it was cheap and useless, throw it in the bin. Most modern Greases have a EP strength so high that when you smack it with the hammer, the grease will remain under the head and never move or splatter.

 

Re the Synth oils that are like water. and this is just general information to anyone that wants to read it.

The viscosity rating has nothing to do with an oils quality. The advertising is such that it alludes to it being better the wider the numbers are apart. Like 10W50 for instance is failry common now. I have seen one that has a 0W60 rating. That is very much like water. Utterly useless in NZ motoring conditions. In fact as said by someone above, some engines require a Mono 30 and in fact, oils that have a mono grade or grade that is not far ranging, like 30W40 are far more stable oils.

The numbers are actually about temperature ratings.

In a 10W-40 for example the 10W bit (W = winter) simply means that the oil must have a certain maximum viscosity or flow at Zero deg temperature. The lower the "W" number the better the oil's cold temperature performance. A 5W or 0W is designed for winter climates like Alaska or Siberia. The 40 in a 10W-40 simply means that the oil must fall within certain viscosity limits at 100°C.

 

 

 

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Yes it would. But you will have a different potential issue. Rust! Make sure that you can start the engine once per month or so. Get the Oil running around and then sh*t off. It ensures an oil film over all metal parts to keep moist sea air off those critical parts.

good point. I get withdrawal symptoms if I don't get out every week or so
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Again I warn about use of synthetic oil. Read my previous posts. A bit of bog paper and your dipstick tells you a lot about oil quality (I think I forgot to mention its best done soon after stopping a hot engine, wipe the dip over the paper and look. It's not an exact science but will give you some idea of dirt). You don't need to go paying for analysing oil unless metal other than normal wear is appearing in it.

This running your engine to stop rust...the oil film left on bearings, cylinders etc doesn't evaporate of dissapear over time, it remains unless removed by someone (desludging). There is NO NEED TO RUN AN ENGINE TO MAINTAIN IT. Going down to the boat and running the engine an hour or so is simply adding wear to it. As I have said, if you are laying up for winter or long periods or winter, get the engine hot, shut it down, remove the air cleaner and shove an oily rag in the air intake, also in the crank case breather. Remember to put a note near the starter to let everyone know not to start the engine! A small amount of oil in the rocker cover, remove the rags and put the air cleaner back on and away you go again.

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Sure, if you bung up all the holes to stop moist salt air getting in. But there is absolutely nothing wrong with running the engine once a month if you so wish. It does not have to be for long. Usually you let the Water temp come up to normal and shut down, unless you are charging the battery bank and need longer. The wear is nothing compared to the overall hrs in the life of the engine. If you read manufacturers manuals, you will find many suggest this. If you are going to long term " winterize" the engine, they suggest using fogging oil in the cylinders and several other things.
If you can see dirt or metal on the bog paper, too late. You have a problem.

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Sure, if you bung up all the holes to stop moist salt air getting in. But there is absolutely nothing wrong with running the engine once a month if you so wish. It does not have to be for long. Usually you let the Water temp come up to normal and shut down, unless you are charging the battery bank and need longer. The wear is nothing compared to the overall hrs in the life of the engine. If you read manufacturers manuals, you will find many suggest this. If you are going to long term " winterize" the engine, they suggest using fogging oil in the cylinders and several other things.

If you can see dirt or metal on the bog paper, too late. You have a problem.

If you DONT see dirt on the bog paper there is something wrong! Oil pump not working properly, blockage, clogged filter, capillarising of the oil lines where heat and pressure turns oil into sludge then crystalises. The oil lubricates, cools and also removes dirt (coke) from valve guides etc but a keen eye can work out how much is in the oil and when a change is needed. Water cooling rises faster than oil temperature, so the viscosity of the oil doesn't change as fast reach its full lubrication until the engine and oil are hot. The biggest wear is on startup, so the more you start an idle engine the more the wear. There is no benefit in doing it Wheels.

Anyhow, said enough on this subject. Believe it or not. 45 years driving and repairing trucks, I seem to know nothing.

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Yeah fair enough. I didn't really do anything of much importance. The bit of engine experience I had gained during my engineering years got me into a couple of techy jobs. Nothing greatly important. I was just a guy involved with the Lube and filter end. I would be the fella that would sample, lab test your oil and give you advise on the most suitable product to use for the situation. Nothing of great importance. I also mucked around teaching mechanics for a bit, but I can't say it was of any importance as it was just to a bunch of Teeange students looking for jobs. Played with hydraulics for a number of years as well.

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Right, thread drift but in the same vein..

Recently I did an oil and filter change. As per usual I tightened the filter according to the instructions which is to hand tighten it and then give it an additional quarter turn.

As per usual there was oil leaking out between the engine block and the filter seal. What a nice mess in the bilge that was.

I think the 'hand tighten' instruction is a crock of poo. Obviously Arnold Schwarzenegger's hand tighten is going to be more than my hand tighten. Why can't filter manufacturers give a meaningful way to express this - foot/pounds of torque as an example would be nice.

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Had tighten is to as tight as you can get it. Then an extra 1/4 turn.
Make sure you wipe some oil on the seal first to allow the seal to turn against the metal seat. Once you have tightened it fully, back it off gain just an ever so slight  fraction. This relaxes the Seal which would have been stretched as it was tightened. .

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I owned a British car which didn't need seperate servicing schedules. It had a total loss and auto rust proofing oil distribution system which simply required topping up the engine each third time you gassed up.

Slick.

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Ah yes, those were the days. Eu de briteesh permeated into my clothing. It was a heady blend of decaying connelly leather, a hint of the highest octane fuel I could afford plus the smoky aftertaste smell of singed 30 weight motor oil as it snuck past the shrunken rope rear main seal (particularly on fast right hand corners) and dripped onto the exhaust.

I'm pretty sure it was not irresistible to women.

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We did a bit of an investigation last year and found that there are really only 2 reasons to change oil, excessive contaminants and worn out additives. Hence we get our oil analysed 6 monthly and change as required on our fleet of backup generators (which all run at 1500rpm all the time).

 

We had a new genset installed recently that the enigineers had over speced and was running with too little load. We had to install load banks to stress the engine enough to bed in properly. It was a pretty interesting exercise. Apparetly on of the worst things you can to to a diesel is run it with little/no load.

 

Oh and apparently they never change the oil on large ships. They just clean it in a centrifuge and top it up as required.

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