Best oil for Ford tractors

Which oil do you guys think is better for Ford tractors? 3000 and 3930. Rotella or Motorcraft? Had Rotella in a 1995 F-350 a few years ago and it gelled?? Ford mechanic strongly suggested Motorcraft. Use Motorcraft in truck now. No problems. Wondering if anybody used Motorcraft in their tractors.

I run Rotella in mine. Whatever oil you
use, make sure it a diesel-rated oil.

You could browse through various recent threads to get a lot of answers. This is a twice-a-week topic.

Was wondering if anybody has had any problems with Rotella gelling?

No... never any problems with it.

(quoted from post at 12:15:08 02/23/21) Was wondering if anybody has had any problems with Rotella gelling?

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You must have misunderstood about the oil gelling. The engine would have been a total loss due to no lubrication if the oil had gelled.

whatever is on sale

Any oil on the shelf is probably better than what was originally specified for your tractor. I don't know what it means for motor oil to "gel". Diesel fuel, yes, but not motor oil. Maybe you were running a 15W-40 oil and it got down below zero and your engine wouldn't crank. That's not a problem with the brand, it's a problem with viscosity.

Choice of oil viscosity depends a lot on your climate. If you live where temperatures rarely dip below 0°F, a 15W-40 oil is a good choice. In colder climates, a thinner oil is a better choice, say 10W-30 or 5W-40.

The main oil choice is not brand but rather type of oil. You have a choice of conventional, semi-synthetic or full synthetic oils. For example there are three different grades of Rotella: T4 (conventional), T5 (semi-synthetic) or T6 (synthetic). For all-around use in just about any weather, Rotella T6 5W-40 is very hard to beat. It is not cheap. I use it in my small engines as well as my tractor and diesel pickup.

You don't say if your tractor is diesel or gas. I assume diesel since Rotella is intended for diesel engines. But any of the diesel oils will be fine in an older gas tractor.

Tractors are diesel. Mechanic said oil was like pudding. Friend of mine said he knew of a guy that same thing happened. Not that cold when it happened. Changed oil and everything was fine.

I have seen on two different occasions where Carquest oil failed to produce oil pressure. Changed to a different brand and pressure came right up. One was in a fresh rebuild and one in an older engine during a normal oil and filter change. No gelling, just would not build oil pressure.

> Mechanic said oil was like pudding. Friend of mine said he knew of a guy that same thing happened.

The only reason I can think of for that would be if engine had a history of infrequent oil changes, resulting in sludge buildup. A fresh oil change with a high-detergent oil would then loosen up all the sludge, filling the crankcase with it. If so, that would be no fault of the Rotella, which was doing what it was supposed to do. Quality oils do not turn to sludge, but they do clean out existing sludge.

Oil was changed every 5000 miles. No neglect to this truck except maybe not driven enough. Only has 115,000 miles on 1995 model.

Use Rotella or Mobil Delvac ,you won't have any trouble in any weather, I've been in -40 to +110 and it's worked fine, oil does not gel like diesel.

oil probably full of water, sludge, and carbon.... due to no oil changes or non detergent oil being used previously. In which case the newer detergent oil would start changing the "MUD" back to a simi liquid as it start cleaning.

> Oil was changed every 5000 miles. No neglect to this truck except maybe not driven enough. Only has 115,000 miles on 1995 model.

Well, that's a quite remarkable story. Bottom line is, if you're not comfortable using Rotella, don't use Rotella. There are plenty of other brands out there.

(reply to post at 10:36:15 02/23/21)

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I use Mobil Delvac in my Ford diesel tractor. When I owned my shop I poured a lot of Rotella in diesel pickups and they went a lot of miles. I have pulled a drain plug on a diesel that was full of oil and had nothing come out. The oil was black pudding. That was over 30 years ago and it was a bad motor and I was draining the oil before pulling the motor. That engine was well abused and it wasn't the oil's fault.