Oil & Fuel Oil Type for your Kubota........

[hill]

Realizing that I'm somewhat off topic I nevertheless think I've a relevant question:

It is good practice to use a dino oil in a new engine in order to allow sufficient friction to seat the piston rings. In general a minimum of 5000 road miles in an automotive use engine is a recommended wait period before switching to a synthetic oil if such switch is contemplated. Some subscribe to longer break-in beliefs

But how do tractor hours equate to road miles for the purpose of determining reasonably that the cylinder piston ring seal has been adequately made? How many hours to run before safely changing to a full synthetic oil?

I am fully convinced of the superiority of synthetics for all purposes and have been since being introduced to their use in 1968 in army helicopter maintenance training to do with gas turbine engines used in the UH1 and OH-6 helicopters of that time. Nothing encountered during a subsequent 20 year period working in a fleet maintenance environment has changed my early belief, and a ten year period of legal work in environmental compliance only substantiated my faith in synthetics. Now I use them at first opportunity in everything I own that needs oils for lubrication.

So I'd like to change out the factory fill ASAP - as soon as the rings are seated, nevermind the 50 hour service intervals.

Has anyone made a decision for themselves as to how many hours of runtime if less than 50 is enough to assure ring seating, and if so what reasoning was used to come to the determination?

 

[RobertN]

Are you running air cooled? If so, diesel rated oil has more of the high temp high pressure addititives in it that would work better. Water cooled is more controlled lower temp environment, and does not need the same additives.

Interesting. The Rotella T 5W-40 synthetic we are using is a "C" oil (it doesn't say anything about diesels on the front, but that is what the API C designation means).

 

[DiezNutz]

But how do tractor hours equate to road miles for the purpose of determining reasonably that the cylinder piston ring seal has been adequately made? How many hours to run before safely changing to a full synthetic oil?

The standard rule of thumb has been 1 tractor hour = 60 miles, based on (big surprise) 60 mph road speed. Adjust accordingly if your tractor spends alot of time idling or at low rpm. So based on this, 50 hours is only 3000 miles or less. As you might have guessed, noone knows the answer to whether YOUR rings are seated. I definitely would not switch over before 50 hrs, as the factory oil that shipped in your engine no doubt has break-in additives in it.

 

[ihookem]

I use to use the cheapest oil I could find in my trucks and cars and changed oil every eight thousand miles after 100k. After 200k I don't change at all. I never had a problem with an engine in my life except my 70 Nova 230 6 cyl. It used some oil. I started useing Mobil 1 in my Duramax cause I want 500k mi. out of it. I will bet the cheapest oil of the right visc. will run a Kubota 10k hrs. and by then the Kubota is junk. I used an off brand oil at Fleet Farm made by Citgo. I do change my 7510 twice a year. cause of the oil visc. About every 75 hrs.

 

[don716]

Well, I checked my local O'reillys parts store and I can get the Delo 400 or the Rotell 15w40 for $9.99 gal. Both are HD oil for diesel engines. He said both oils were the same to him but the Rotell was easier to locate.I guess i will go with Rotell 15w40.
Donny

 

[Skyco]

If you want, your O'reilly's can get you the 10w-30 weight Rotella T. Had my local one get it for me, had it the next day, same price $9.99 a gallon.
I use Delo in my Ford PowerStroke in the 15W-40 and will probably switch over to that oil after the warranty expires. Still a little puzzled why Kubota recommends 10W-30 when the rest of the diesel world has pretty much settled on 15W-40

 

[DiezNutz]

Still a little puzzled why Kubota recommends 10W-30 when the rest of the diesel world has pretty much settled on 15W-40

Fair enough... but can any of us legitimately second-guess the folks that designed & built the engine? They must've had a pretty darn good reason...

 

[hill]

Still a little puzzled why Kubota recommends 10W-30 when the rest of the diesel world has pretty much settled on 15W-40

It's all about clearances. Smaller clearances means less space between metal parts, and oil viscosities are carefully chosen to minimize the time it takes to force oil into all of those spacings. I think it's safe to assume that if a manufacturer specifies a given oil viscosity for a particular engine it is doing so with careful consideration to all of the factors which dictate the full flow of lubrication to all of that engine's parts and we do well to follow their recommendations.

It does not work to decide that if it is diesel then such and such oil is right for it. There is no standard diesel oil.

We are seeing engines today that are built to such tight tolerances that zero weight oils are specified when cold with multiviscosity oils that range from 0-30wt or 5-30wt and the like. Such stuff was unheard of not long ago whether for gas or diesel engines. Diesels in particular were often built to quite loose standards in comparison to those of today, tolerances which allowed the safe use of a straight 30wt oil.

Kubota, along with many of the Japanese manufacturers seem to have begun building engines and other things to marvelously close tolerances early on. I remember being awestruck by the jewel-like interior surfaces of a Honda 250 Scrambler engine in 1966 - so different from those in my 283 Chevy engine!

 

[DiezNutz]

Excellent post hill. Further goes to explain why you shouldn't assume that the same weight oil you dump into some huge Cummins is the appropriate thing for your Kubota. Again, I think this is really applies to when the engine is relatively new. Later down the road if you want to switch things up, I don't think it matters so much.

 

[Skyco]

It's all about clearances. Smaller clearances means less space between metal parts, and oil viscosities are carefully chosen to minimize the time it takes to force oil into all of those spacings. I think it's safe to assume that if a manufacturer specifies a given oil viscosity for a particular engine it is doing so with careful consideration to all of the factors which dictate the full flow of lubrication to all of that engine's parts and we do well to follow their recommendations.

Yeah I still cringe everytime I change the oil in the wife's Honda Pilot...they insist on a 5w-20, I started in the era when I put 20w-50 in everything