Wilsons Sandbox

Just in from 16 days offshore. ( Gotta Pay for my toys ya know). Trying to catch up on 2 weeks worth of posts so I'm behind current day replys to lots of this stuff. This is the first that attracted my attentioon.

> oil analysis done on a 3000 mile sample

Gotta take this with a grain of salt. For example, When I worked for Shell in large compressor stations in the late '60's / early '70's, they never changed oil till the monthly analysis told them it needed it. Couse , that was in company testing and the larger compressore held about 2000 gallons of oil Major expense. Seems to work for them. Fast forward to late '70's early '80's Mechanic for Oil Drilling company with 14 landbased rigs to take care of. Oil samples sent monthly. In question about some of the replyes being away from what I was seeing on filter readouts. Ie. new engines needing overhaul and engines where the pistons were just about to swap holes doing fine. So, did a number on them. Took 4 oil samples from the same engine at same time. Put it all in a 1 gallon container and shook it up to make sure all was sameo. Put it in 4 different sample bottles and sent it off to our tester. Results, 4 different ones. All from needing overhaul to all is cool. Course, depends on who's doing and what kinda test they are running. I run the Beemers about 5 to 6K on Mobile 1 and the KLR 2 to 5 thousand depending on how much dust I run in. No problems yet.

On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, Andrus Chesley wrote:

>monthly. In question about some of the replyes being away from what I was >seeing on filter readouts. Ie. new engines needing overhaul and engines >where the pistons were just about to swap holes doing fine. So, did a >number on them. Took 4 oil samples from the same engine at same time. Put >it all in a 1 gallon container and shook it up to make sure all was >sameo. Put it in 4 different sample bottles and sent it off to our >tester. Results, 4 different ones. All from needing overhaul to all is >cool.

Several people on TheOilDrop have done something similar, and the results were not encouraging. The results didn't vary too wildly, but there was enough variation to potentially make someone think that there should be "some cause for concern" or "nothing to worry about", depending on which lab was used. RM

On Sun, 2 Jan 2005, squasher_1 wrote:

>RM, on your oil analysis, is there a difference between diesel and >regular auto oil? or synthetic vs dino?

Well, it's impossible to compare oils in the KLR since I have only one set of test results for this bike. For the ZR-7, I have one each for simple Havoline 20W-50, Delvac 1300 Super, and Rotella T synthetic 5W-40. The strong additive package including the generous quantity of boundary lubricant (ZDDP) in the Delvac was readily apparent. Surprisingly, the Delvac and the Havoline wear metal numbers were about the same. Both had considerable viscosity loss though neither one fell out-of-grade. The hands-down winner was the $13/gal Rotella T Synth. I approached this 5W-40 salad oil with fear and trepidation but now I wouldn't hesitate to use it again. It had the lowest wear metal numbers, the least viscosity loss, and the best shift quality. It's interesting the note that this best-performing oil had a weak-looking additive package when compared to the Delvac. Zinc/Phosphorus was down near API SL car oil territory. One of the diesel oils had some moly (don't remember which). No clutch problems noted. Any of the oils would suffice although the 20W-50 shifted quite poorly. A smoother gearbox (like the KLR's) would alleviate this concern. I think the key to long engine life is to set a reasonable drain interval and to not rev it to the moon on startup (ie. starting it with the throttle open). Expensive oil really is better but it's overrated in most cases. RM

On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 08:20:56 +0000, [1]"Blake Sobiloff" said:

>Oh, come on now--don't tease like that! What oil, what drain interval, >what kind of riding, what were the spectrographic results and TBN, and >when did you do the analysis?

Don't have the numbers here, but it was 3k miles on M1 15W-50 Tri- synthetic. High ambient temps, and quite a few different conditions including off-road and interstate. Several wear metals (especially aluminum and iron) were way high, TBN was good, oxidation and nitration were good, fuel dilution was "trace" but the oil still managed to fall out of grade. This should be damn near impossible with a group IV synthetic (few/no VII's to shear down). The low oxidation/nitration numbers made me feel that people who are trying to rig up oil coolers are probably wasting their time. RM