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jdemarisj
04-04-2004 19:06:39
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Re: Detergent vs. Non-detergent motor oil in reply to Glenn FitzGerald, 04-04-2004 16:35:26
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I don't believe it has anything to do with design, just the prospect of loosening up sludge. An engine that's never had detergent oil in it tends to accumlate sludge - sometimes a lot of it. I've pulled apart some old engines with 2" of mud at the bottom of the oil pan. I worked at a Chevy dealership in the 60s, and we used to pull valve covers off 283 V-8s and you could hardly even see the rocker arms because of all the sludge. If you start dumping high-detergent oil in an engine like that, some of the old deposits will loosen up and flow through the engine. I've got a dozen tractors of my own that predate detergent oil, and I use modern HD oil in all of them - but I didn't do so until afer having them apart and cleaning them up. I've got a Case VAC that's never been apart since new in 1949. I'm sure it's got lots of mud in it, but since I bought it from the original owner around 1975, I've been using a mix of HD and non-detergent oil in it. I change it every time the oil turns black, and with every oil change I've increased the ratio of HD oil to non-D oil. All sounds silly, but the engine still runs great - so I'm not going to pull it part just for the heck of it. I probably would have been just as well off using straight non-detergent oil in it and leaving well enough alone. When I worked at a Deere dealership, we had people that claimed their engines were ruined just from switching from "medium-detergent" oil to high-detergent oil. These were all modern diesels. We used two types of oil for diesels, Quaker State HDX (considered medium detergent) and John Deere Torq-Guard (supposed to be very high detergent). We had several occasions where a customer's tractor would get an oil change using the Deere high-detergent oil, and shortly after - the owner would claim it started burning oil. In all these cases, the tractor had previously only been using the lower detergent Quaker State oil. So, is it true? Who knows? We made of point of NEVER putting the Deere oil in any engine unless it had used it since it was new. One more note on non-detergent oil. A neighbor-friend of mine has five Deere tractors that were left-overs from when their family farm sold Deere tractors back in the 1940s and 50s. 420, 520, 530, 630, and a 720. First his father (now dead), and now he is meticulous about oil changes and has always used non-detergent oil since the tractors were new. I've had all of them apart one time or another, and they are all very clean inside. So, I guess even with non-detergent oil sludge can be prevented.
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