1850joe

New User
I'm interested in people's thoughts on oil. Especially tractors from the late 1940s to early 1970s. I own a 1937 Farmall F-12. I only use straight 30 weight oil with no detergents or additives to protect the older seals. In my Massyharris 44 special I was going to use 15-50 Mobile 1. I was told not to because it my be harmful to the engine. I know synthetic oil may leak more. Is there an issue using modern oils in older engines. Say back to the 1940s.
 
I think the consensus is most people use 15-40 diesel oil in old tractors and new, with great success. If I had a newer tractor that I was putting a lot of hours on I would use synthetic.
 
I am a firm believer in synthetic oils. Years ago I tried it in air cooled engines ranging from lawn mowers to motorcycles. I could actually tell the engines ran cooler, meaning less friction. No, they didnt leak any worse than conventional oil. I run it in everything, gas and diesel. Having said that,I dont run it in my tractor engines. If I was farming and running the engines hard, I would use synthetic. In my world (tractor shows and Class 2 pulling), I just use conventional 15w40. Dont know why detergent oil would have a negative effect on rubber or felt seals, never heard that one. With the clearances in your engine and low rpm, I would think the 15w40 would be more than adequate.
 
i think the people are going to get pizzed because this question gets answered once or twice each year. is there a reason you are going to use that oil? any multigrade from 5-20,5-30,10-30,10-40,20-50 is perfectly fine . choose it according to the weather. the detergent keeps the solids suspended , prevents sludge and neutralizes the acids in oil. if you want to get picky, remove the oil pan and valve cover and flush the engine out. the 15-40 diesel oil is higher in detergent than gas oils, as diesel has more soot forming in the oil.
 
Once or twice a year how about ever month or so. Like everyone says anything now days is ten times better than what we had 40 years ago.
 
Four actual changes have created the dramatic improvement in engine life we now find common
1 The removal of lead from gasoline (nearly no deposits in combustion chambers and 100K mile spark plug durability)
2 The dramatically better engine oil with proven multi viscosity, detergents, corrosion inhibitors, and synthetic structures
3 Fuel injection and computer controlled operation
4 Metallurgy and manufacturing precision

The oil is very important in that there are two critical pathways. The first is that car engine oil has changed to provide longer life to catalytic converters and roller cam/lifters at the expense of friction reducers needed in flat tappet cams and rubbing wear points found in older engines. Therefore using modern diesel rated oil (15-40) has been widely endorsed here on this forum.
The non-detergent oil in your tractor may have lead to sludge buildup and could require a rwmoval of pan and valve cover to physically remove the gooy mess. I believe there are no seal issues with new diesel grade oils, traditional or synthetic.

If you want to keep using the oil you are using I would change it 2 times a year, or once if it is used only a few hours a minth. If it were mine I would pull the pan and cover, rinse and remove all sludge, then use 15-40 in it. modern oils are so much better than the old single wt. oils that keeping old iron operational depends on it. Jim
 
yep,yep. "they dont build things like they used to" is the saying. heck not its built better! lol.
 
I have 15W40 diesel engine oil in a barrel and use it in everything, except the Jeep and Silverado. This includes several air cooled gas engines, old and newer tractors, gas and diesel, trucks gas and diesel. No troubles so far.
 
Age old question as old as engines have been used. I have 17 running tractors. From 1937 F12 /20,to 197o 1456.I try to use all of them for something during the year. Plus 2 older gas combines,gas grain truck and pickups,car,motorcycle,ATV... I run 15/44 fleet diesel in all of them,everything.Have for over 40 years.Most farmers use the same oil in all thier equipment.Brand is really not important.I have NEVER had an oil related failure. Most are 'high hour' machines.Todays worst oils are far superior to yesterdays best oils. There was no such thing as 'multiviscosity' or detergent oils when the tractor was built.You need to pick ONE oil for your tractors.Again,brand is not important.IMHO,synthetic oil is a waste of money on an old tractor that only gets run a few hours a year.You should change oil yearly anyway. If you start putting a seperate/different oil in each tractor etc,someday you will have a mixup. pouring the wrong oil into the wrong tractor. Especially if the kids or others are around 'helping'.If you have 5 old tractors or other vehicles,each useing a different oil,you're gonna have 5 different open oil cans,plus 5 kinds of unopened cans for adding.You're asking for trouble.So,one oil for all. You can use the same oil as you put in your pickup.Keep it simple.
 
The temperature was -24 the night I was born in December, 1934.

My dad was driving a 1928 Whippet coupe and it was so cold the oil was frozen in the crankcase when he set out for the hospital. He went anyway, and apparently the heat from the under lubed bearings thawed the oil with no damage.

The point is, there is obviously no comparison between the engine oil of that era and today's oil. I'll take my chances with the latest technology.

That being said, I try to use detergent SAE 30 in my tractors when it's available, otherwise 10W40.
 
There seems to be a feeling that if you change from single wt nondetergent to multivis detergent you're immediately have leaks and plugged up oil filter. Not so.What I like to do on an old tractor that I change over is to drain a quart or two of oil out and pour in some diesel. Idle for 10-15 minutes before I drain.Extreme case pull the pan too.Refill with fresh oil and filter. Replace the filter again in 10 hours or so. an engine that just poops around and is never allowed to get fully warm for an extended period of time will get sludged up much sooner on nondetergent oil. That's why multivis detergent is much better in the old tractor.10/30;15/40 fleet diesel.
 
On a slightly different subject....
A buddy of mine recently overhauled his B John Deere. This guy has worked at a service station/mechanic shop for over 40 years and is (usually) quite informative when it comes to oil. This was no minor overhaul, he had the engine apart and did everything how it should have been. The engine had been together for a few months and had been broken in when I saw it. So after he had given me the walkaround tour, I asked him what oil he will be using. He told me "non-detergent 30". He obviously saw the incredulous look on my face (complete with the raised eyebrows), because his next words were: "Hey, if non-detergent has worked in this engine for 70 years, why won't it work for another 70?" I had no answer to give back to him and I didn't mention oil to him again.
 
(quoted from post at 12:19:18 02/20/21) On a slightly different subject....
A buddy of mine recently overhauled his B John Deere. This guy has worked at a service station/mechanic shop for over 40 years and is (usually) quite informative when it comes to oil. This was no minor overhaul, he had the engine apart and did everything how it should have been. The engine had been together for a few months and had been broken in when I saw it. So after he had given me the walkaround tour, I asked him what oil he will be using. He told me "non-detergent 30". He obviously saw the incredulous look on my face (complete with the raised eyebrows), because his next words were: "Hey, if non-detergent has worked in this engine for 70 years, why won't it work for another 70?" I had no answer to give back to him and I didn't mention oil to him again.

Gambles that gets into a different subject for break in oils with new rings and cam and flat tappet lifters. The non detergent 30 wt is basically a mineral oil which was what was run back in the day. Break in oil from my research is basically a non detergent mineral oil with a high zinc additive. Modern oil has a lot of friction reducers used in modern engines, often aluminum with a different metallurgy used in the rings, pistons, cylinders, and cams. The friction reducers work against the seating of rings in the cylinders of these old tractors so the basic mineral non detergent break in oil allows the rings to seat better which isn't an issue on new engines. That said, the use of flat tappet lifters on these old tractors cause wear on cam shaft lobes so the zinc additive helps reduce the initial break in wear on the cam lobes on these older engines. New engines all have hydraulic lifters which don't wear on the cams which are made with better metal anyway. Also running a rebuilt engine under no load or at fast idle will not create sufficient combustion pressure to seat the rings which can lead to the cylinder walls glazing and the rings not seating which will give you an oil burner with lower compression. Since most of us don't have a dyno to break one in on or can't just go hook up a plow and plow for a hundred hours we just have to run them fast and not let them idle much during that time. Or spend a couple weeks driving around the section.

That is based upon my research. Some here believe in using John Deere break in oil which is a non detergent mineral oil with zinc. John Deere recommends using it for a 100 hour break in and I think IH does the same in their rebuild specs. Getting my rebuilt engine next week they have a bottle of zinc additive to add to whatever oil I use. Am planning to use the 30 wt non detergent for break in and then go to 15w40 diesel oil.

For the guy continuing to use non detergent 30 wt oil in his tractors cause that's how they did it in the old days, well, there are plenty of long time mechanics on this forum who made their living out of overhauling those tractors so oil user beware.

Got my break in sheet from my machine shop for non highway motors without a dyno. 4 to 6 min. at 1500-2300 no load; 9-11 min. at 2000 - rated speed at 25% load; 14-16 min at 2000 - rated speed at 50%; 14-16 min at 2000-rated speed at 50-75% load; and 9-11 minutes at rated speed at 75-100% load. Then for shut down, run it with no load for 2 minutes at approx 1500 rpm. Loading the engine causes combustion gasses to exert sufficient pressure behind the rings causing the ring face to seal against the cylinder wall and the bottom side of the rings to seal against the piston ring groove. The first 4-6 minutes of no load allows the engine to warm up before applying the load.
 
Nothing wrong with using modern oil in old equipment.

The 15w40 diesel oil is the best all around oil for the old flat tappet engines. Be it synthetic or conventional.

Modern gas engine oils are designed for roller cams, which don't need the zinc type additives anti wear additives. They are also designed to be compatible with high tech emissions systems, not a concern with older vehicles.

Synthetic has it's advantages, as in resistance to extreme temperatures, especially in air cooled and 2 cycle engines. But it is also more expensive. For general use, low use vehicles and equipment that gets an annual oil change regardless of little run time, it is a waste of money.

The only concern would be switching to detergent oil with a severely sludged engine. But anything that sludged is on borrowed time anyway if it is still a working tractor, eventually it will need to come apart.

If it is a survivor antique,and you want to preserve it for show purposes, just keep using non detergent. It will probably outlast all of us anyway.
 
I have nothing against getting "oiled up" now and then. Come to think of it, it's approaching happy hour on a Saturday evening and I don't have anything else to do so,
why not? I've heard that Crown Royal makes just the right viscosity for this cold weather. (;>))
 
15-40 Rotella. No reason to go with a synthetic. Not going to make them run any better, and will probably exhibit lower oil pressure because of how thin it is, and cost ya more.

Have heard all sorts of fears of using detergent oil in old tractors. Have never heard of an engine getting wrecked because of a sudden release of gunk in an an engine. This would happen gradually and end up in the filter.

Don't over-think oil selection.
 
(quoted from post at 17:21:11 02/20/21) I have nothing against getting "oiled up" now and then. Come to think of it, it's approaching happy hour on a Saturday evening and I don't have anything else to do so,
why not? I've heard that Crown Royal makes just the right viscosity for this cold weather. (;>))

Crown Royal Northern Harvest is particularly fine .
 
Hello Joe welcome to YT! You really know how to make an entrance.
A. Modern oils are so much better than oils of yester-year. Particularly oils from pre WWII.
B. No tractor built before 1960 is going to be worked day to day as hard as they were on the farms that purchased them save a couple machines. Any machines built between 1960 and 1980 are also not being worked day to day as hard as they were on the farms that purchased them, save maybe 2 percent of them. So unless you are one that is using your machine as one of the exceptions above dump whatever modern oil in it you want and sleep well. If you do use your machine as per one of the exceptions above, dump whatever ..name brand.. oil within the machines original viscosity and specification requirements. Change it per the original manufactures intervals and sleep well. My 2 cents on the subject and only worth what you are paying for it.
 


Joe, I am very curious about "straight 30 weight oil with no detergents or additives to protect the older seals" can you share where this came from?
 
I will post later a John Deere service bulletin about removing sludge caused buy years of non detergent oils
 

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