OIL in tractors

I have been doing a lot of reading on motor oils, and seen a lot of questions on this web site about what oil to put in an engine. I know that the oils being sold now are for engines that were built after 1995 and all of the oil standards have changed. The oil weights have changed to meet the EPAs standards for the new engines in cars, trucks and all other equipment. If you dont believe it look it up at API OIL STANDARDS and you can read it for yourself. Many of you guys know that a 30-W oil now is thin to what it use to be, and dose not hold the same oil pressure as it use to because it's made for the new engines not an old one. I am interested to ask you all out there what you think of these new oils in the old engines gas or diesel? And what you are running in your older engines that holds up the best. Bandit

first off you will start an oil war.

second.. hd diesel oil is made to go 10,000 miles between changes on over the road diesels and deliver a million miles between overhauls.
This means you can get 10,000 hours between overhauls on tractors using this oil and change it every 500 hours due to the special hd additive package.

It has additives to fight acid build up. Something we need in our tractors, gas or diesel as they set up a lot. the moisture mixes with the sulfer to form a sulfuric acid, and this oil prevent this.
It has additives to clean the engine and prevent sludge built up. Something we need.
It has anti wear additives.. again, very good. the extra zinc and phosporous will stick only to very hot wear areas and cut the heat and wear down.
It has friction modifiers.. again, very good so it gets 3% better mpg over single weight oil.
It has viscosity modifiers to make the oil flow good in cold yet it will not thin down in extreame heat, and yet work well in turbo charged engines.. again perfect for gas or diesel tractors.
It is low in wax and parafins that sludge up engines when they set up. again good for gas andd disel tractor.
It is designed to lower the amount of oil blown out the breather due to the high compression and blowby in the crankcases of hd large engines, again something that helps gas and diesel tractors.
its tested in wear, piston scuffing, valve wear, cam wear, piston ring coking, wrist pin wear and about 60 other tests at a higher level than standard gas oil.

hd diesel oils can be had in 15w-40 or 5w-40 weights and are perfect for tractor use. The hd oils have to most additives you can get in any oil and are not good for gas engines that have gas catalytic converters.. but tractors dont have the type of converters, so again, we win.

you can get these oils at any diesel truck stop, at any wal mart, at any tractor store, and at any autoparts..

did you get the part about any tractor dealer??

you can get chevron delo, mobile delvac, or shell rotella. You can get mystic oil, amsoil, purple power in hd diesel oils..

are you starting to get the ideal yet??

the 5w-40 is good for those who snow plow or run tractors in below zero temperatures. the 15w-40 is designed for the rest of us.


recently the additives have be lowered slightly due to emissions on new disel engines being built with dpf filters on the exhuast , so there is a dry clutch motorcyle oil that is still the old formula that is the only oil that is better.
It would seem the additives in the hd diesel oil were so good that they would actually coat the hot exhaust filters and render then usless so the government has made us cut back slightly on the additive packages in the newest diesel oils.

Banditfarmer,
I admire you. Asking a question about motor oil is akin to asking about politics, religion, and nasty in-laws. Generally the same result occurs. With that said; please don't shoot the piano player.

Engine oils of today have had most of their suspension and dispersants reduced, except for the better diesel oils. For years I have run diesel oils in all of my engines. Back when Kendall was a real oil company, I used their super DSL diesel oils in 30 wt and 15w-45. Now that Kendall is a name slapped on mouthwash, I buy Shell Rotella by the barrel. Many of my friends use other brands of oils, but all of them use diesel oils in their lawnmowers, cars, and gas tractors.

I can only tell you that my personal car, a Chevy Caprice, has been beaten like a rented mule for almost 300,000. miles and I have never even popped a valve cover pan off. In my family, that is common. When we sell a car, friends line up to buy them. I once ran a 1948 Jeep until the pistons literally rattled in the bores. She never blew and the bearings were still fine. The stock pistons had to be replaced with 0.040" over to find a clean bore. Tonight I can take you for a ride in that Jeep. When I am gone, someone else will be running it.

My father was a professional mechanic and he went through about five barrels of engine oil a month. He kept a fleet of factory equipment serviced that ran 24 hours a day. He could experiment by doing different service procedures on a fleet of identical machines. He taught me and I stubbornly toe the line that he drew. Every time that line is not followed, I learned a hard lesson.

To me, any quality diesel grade oil will give excellent service in a classic gas tractor. My tractors are all getting 15w-40 Rotella right now. I only use the 30 weight Rotella for air cooled engines in summer service. If I had a well worn tractor; 30w would be used to keep things spinning.

Like my father; there is just one thing I despise, and that is synthetic oils. When a forklift engine dies at seven thousand hours from synthetic slop, while the petroleum oil fed units are still going after fifteen thousand hours, that tells me what synthetics are for.

There; now I can get flamed proper.
Charlie

soxtbill,
Come on up here and sit beside me. We both heartily agree. You can now take your lumps with me.

First I want to hear about that brand of motorcycle oil that still carries all that nasty zinc and phosphorous. That tickles my fancy. Later we can go install a dpf filter on a few politicians.

I just have one slight difference of opinion. I stubbornly refuse to use 5w-whatever for any application. I have seen too many good blower engines trashed from that stuff. With our nasty cold weather I am pouring my 15w-40 Rotella in blower engines that are running on the governor for many tankfuls a day. One neighbor just blew his blower engine from a diet of 5w-whatever. His crank seized, and I laughed at him. I assisted in doing the engine swap and I filled the new crankcase with my flavor of oil. The neighbor has changed oil in that blower twice since the engine swap. He has been using 15w-40 Rotella. She may turn hard on startup, but at full throttle, she keeps turning real nice.

Charlie

"ve said it on here before (( but since very few people have ever heard of the brand and since it"s about twice the price of any of the other oils it"s usually ignored or I"m accused of being a rep for the company)) The best oils and greases on the market are made by Lubrication Engineers. I"ve seen their greases used in machines where the majority of other common brands had already been tried and discarded because they wouldn"t stay put. Not only did the grease stay where it was suposed to but because of that fact the greasing intervals were able to be cut by more than half in most cases.

As far as the oils I replaced the Rotella I used to run with their engine oil in my service truck (Series 50 Detroit). With the same weight Rotella (15w-40) I was hard pressed to get it to turn over fast enough to start below 40 degrees without the block heater. With the LE oil I have started it at 25 degrees with no heater. I"ve seen it used in a 3306 CAT engine for 12 years. When the engine was rebuilt due to an electrolosis problem (hole in the liner) there was absolutely no ridge at the top of the bores and the mains and rods all measured out to standard. Dad built engines for CAT before going in for himself and said he has never seen an engine with that many known hours come back with all standard parts. I"ve also got a customer who was going through turbos on an air compresssor unit about once every 9 to 12 months due to the speed the engine idled at. After putting in the LE it wasn"t uncommon to go over two years before having to replace a turbo. This problem was routine on three different compressor units with the same engine so it wasn"t a once in a lifetime type deal, the results were tried and true.

I've been up the mountain in Dad's service truck with an Allison automatic with a common automatic transmission fluid in it and watched as the needle creapt up into the yellow halfway to the top. I've also been up the same hill after it was changed out to the LE oil and the temp guage never got got out of the green and in fact never even got close to the yellow.

I have also seen the my customer with the compressors start using their compressor oil and watched as the operating temps on them begin to run 10 to 15 degrees cooler than it had with the origional oil he had been running.

I could go on with other examples of what I have personally seen their products do and the amount of money it has saved my customers when they decided to buy really good oil for a change. That said here"s a link to their web site and I"ll stop here and let you decide for yourself.......
Lubrication Engineers

The engine probably is hard on start-up because you're running too heavy a weight oil with the 15w. Using 5W-40 isn't going to cause a problem of blower to lose an engine. If you think the 15w-40 is so good on blower engines, why not try some 20w-50, its a heavier oil yet? The 50 weight won't break-down as fast as your 40 weight.

In all honesty Charlie, do you understand the concept of multi-weight oils?

Brad Penn racing oil still has a very high zinc rating.


bob

Boy, I really beg to differ about LE being the best lubes available. Amsoil sure is good stuff and they were the first synthetic oil.

I don't mean to ruffle any feathers, but I all ways ask questions. I know that the engines of today have very tight tolerances and the old engines were much looser than today's engines. I ask questions for many reasons, But I do have 3 diesels form 1963, 1967 and 1976 all under 3000 hours. The 1976 was built in Europe and is very low hour-ed and Rotela 40-W is to thin for it. I changed the oil to the Rotela and it ran for 20 min and the oil pressure went from 45 psi down to 20 psi, shut it off left it sit for a day and tried it again same thing. Drained it out and put in Exon XD-40 started it up and 45 psi and ran it about 7 hours disking in 84 degree day and was still holding about 38 psi at the end of the day. There are differences in oil from brand to brand, but I know from experience some older diesels need that old style heavy oil to keep them running. The diesels have block heaters and they sit over the winter and I use the gas tractors when needed. I still like to ask questions to you guys out there to learn new things. Who says you cant teach an old dog a new thing or too. Bandit

Anyone really interested in this issue can go to a website called "Bob is the oil guy.com" They have tribalests (the engineers that design lubricants)that explain all the differences in oils of all types, additives, filters, etc.

The oil's of today are MILES ahead of yesterdays oil's,base stocks additive packages are all WAAAY better.

and you say [i:88c372e509]"30-W oil now is thin to what it use to be, and dose not hold the same oil pressure as it use to because" [/i:88c372e509]

you do realize different brands of oils will be build different with different cSt viscosity's(how thick the oil is at temps),a 30w oil is a robust weight because it will have low to no VII's and will be resistant to shearing(thinning) vs. a multi-weight oil.

how do i feel about todays oil's? there some of the best ever producecd days ahead of yesterdays oil,grab a jug of any brand HDEO and go with it your protected well.

bob15 wrote:

"In all honesty Charlie, do you understand the concept of multi-weight oils?"




A 15w-xx oil is a 15w with polymers added to it to thicken it.

I would rather run a straight grade oil ( I run 30w) and lubricate my engine with oil not polymers.

Tom

(quoted from post at 15:16:46 03/07/10) Anyone really interested in this issue can go to a website called "Bob is the oil guy.com" They have tribalests (the engineers that design lubricants)that explain all the differences in oils of all types, additives, filters, etc.

Click to expand...

Im a active member there,and oil enthusiast,great site for this type info.

Amsoil Wasn't the first synthetic oil. The Germans developed synthetic oil in the 1930's before the onset of WW2. Chevron was the first in the USA back in the 1950's, but it for mainly the USAF.

Amsoil was the first for the auto industry. But, that doesn't make them the best. If you look at the numbers, I believe LE bests Amsoil.


bob

Where are those numbers at?? (seriously, I'd like to see them, I'm not just replying back)

I looked at LE's website and didn't see any test comparisons. Looks like LE products are a paraffin based synthetic or synthetic blend. Paraffin based synthetics are a lower grade than AMSOIL or even Mobil-1 synthetics. (if you'd like more info send me an email)

Yes many crude based engine oils are good and some are junk and they have served us well for 100+ years. But GOOD synthetics are better (and like crude based some are good and some are junk (anything at wallyworld for example)).

You don't find engines/tractors/trucks growing naturally in the wild so why expect natural oils to be better????

I know alot of guys get hung up on synthetics and specs but not me. I've never used any of LE's synthetic stuff and as far as everything else I really don't get that into the specs per se, I just know what I have seen over the past 12 years using it myself and on customers machines I've turned onto their stuff. I've also seen and heard alot more stories from the guy that turned us onto the LE products origionally. he has been running their products exclusively in his equipment for over 40 years and has never had a lubruication related failure of any type. Like I said specs are good and all but nothing beats real world experience in my book.