oil for Farmall A

[Bird]

RobertN, in 1973 I bought a new Winnebago motor home that had an Onan generator for auxiliary power (gasoline powered, air cooled generator, of course). Very shortly after the first oil change, I noticed the exhaust was smoking and I was having to add oil. I took it to the authorized Onan service center in Dallas in July and when I went back to get it, they had left it running in the heat for 24 hours, after simply changing oil in it; no smoke. I had used the same 10W-30 oil that I was using in the chassis engine and they told me that was the problem. Even though it was a gasoline engine, it needed to have a motor oil rated for diesels, or as they called it "diesel lube." I never had another problem with that generator after I changed to a motor oil rated for diesels.

Bird

 

[art]

Bird on your generator you had not run the engine hard enough to seat everything in right. What they did by running it at full throttle was to heat every thing up and get it to seat the rings and clean the cylinder walls.

 

[art]

Bird we also sell Pennzoil and Quaker State oils and on there quote, (better oils) they do have both the S ratings and the C ratings. That says that they will produce well for 3000 miles in either. Back in the early 70's Viscosity oil and IH went at testing oils there goal was 3000hours on a diesel and 1500hours on a gas engine. They found they had to remove the ash from the oil to get past 700hours on the gas engine to stop the valves from burning. The diesel they had to add ash to slow cylinder wall and piston build up. We have in the past taken care of cylinder glazing by installing gas engine oil to a diesel engine. What a diesel needs today is a CF or H will replace your CD rating. Lower end or rod and main wear can be increased by the wrong oil because the oils do have additives that wear out. I don't as a rule like multi-weight oils as they will break down on the vicosity on hard running engines like in agriculture.

 

[Bird]

art, you could be right about the generator; I don't recall how much use it'd had, but it was a single cylinder 2.5kw Onan, used primarily to run one 10k BTU air-conditioner and a coffee maker, and after changing to Exxon Dieselube 40W, never had another problem.

I grew up with a Dad who owned a Texaco service station, then sold it and bought a Mobil service station, and we also had an auto parts house, so I read lots of the trade journals, test reports, etc. but that was 40 years ago. Twenty years ago, part of my responsiblities was fleet management for a 300+ vehicle fleet, and I regularly attended the annual National Association of Fleet Managers (Law Enforcement Group) Conferences, read their journals, etc. So, like I said, I don't have any technical expertise and my experience is dated, but I've been using multiple viscosity oils, either 10W-30 or 10W-40 for 40 years, Quaker State for the past 20 years in gasoline engines, Delo 400 in diesel, and (knock on wood) I've never owned an oil burner and never had to pull the pan or heads on any vehicle I've owned. As to which is best; depends on which company's tests you read about. Lots of different opinions and I guess if there was agreement instead, there wouldn't be so many different products.

Anyway, I don't disagree with anything you've said. But of course, I'm just staying with what I know has worked well until I have strong evidence to the contrary.

Bird

 

[art]

Bird I learned a long time ago if the shoe fits wear it. When people are not having good luck it's time to change and your program seems to be working right now so stick with it. If you think about uses farm is nearly 100% full throttle full load. Trucks are considered 1/3 throttle 1/3 load and auto's 1/4 & 1/4. This does leave a bit of difference for design of oils and of coarse use is a critical part.

 

[Bird]

Art, for right now I'm in favor of continuing as is, but I appreciate the information you posted, know that a lot of my information is dated, and things really are changing (too rapidly for an old man to keep up with sometimes), so I may need to change too some day.

Bird

 

[chuckp]

Art:
I agree with your arguments for the diesel vs gasoline. But let me pose another facet. For older gasoline tractors, should that 30W oil be non-detergent or high detergent.

Chuck