20-50w oil swap

[3Phase]

There's another EP/Boundary additive no one seems worried about but it can make a wet clutch slip too. I suppose it's a sort of banana concentrate mopped up with 20 Mule Team Boraxo -- potassium borate.

I agree that the moly we should be worried about for wet clutches is the higher concentrations and the bulk stuff they basically knock off the rock before running it across a fine-toothed cheese grater hanging over a bubbling cauldron of oil.

I was searching for a Delo 400 VOA yesterday and ran across a thread on the Ford Truck Enthusiasts forum that made me laugh. The OP had a VOA done for a sample from a new jug of Chevron CJ-4 Delo 400 LE and he posted the result for posterity. After a nice long page and interesting banter, for the last post the OP finally lets everyone know that he was worried about high magnesium and moly levels in his engine oil and he had the VOA done for a baseline because he works at a copper/molybdenum mine and the moly gets into everything!


Ford Truck Enthusiasts Forums > Diesel > 6.0L Power Stroke Diesel > Virgin Delo 400 Analysis

.

[Bonz]

Interesting he was worried about Moly levels in a truck engine, and magnesium is used as a normal additive to oil as well.

Motorcraft 15w40 diesel oil (Dino), uses primarily calcium as a cleaning agent whereas most other oils i have had analyzed use mixes of calcium, magnesium and boron.

[3Phase]

Day-O!

So, to get back at least slightly on-topic:

The XS11 is in oil heaven right now because they were made when the SAE SE spec moved up to SF. There have been a few bumps in the road but oil has improved quit a bit since the '70s! When I can find it I try to use the Super Tech 20W-50 in the summer and Rotella 15W-40 in the winter.

They're both excellent oils but neither one of them hold up worth spit in an XS11 engine. 2K or fewer miles is the rule and my left foot will let me know when it's fewer. When the shifting starts to get 'notchy' it's time to change the oil and it doesn't matter what color the oil is or how many miles are on it. The only good part it is that they're only slightly more expensive by the gallon than ordering up a hundred-pound block of paraffin that I can shave and blend into a can of warm kerosine as it's needed.

It's hard to find any kind of 50-weight anything oil where I live because it's a high-emissions area of California and the State is trying to get rid of it. When the C.A.R.B. finishes having its way, most of us will be walking or riding bicycles because the only oil anyone will be able to buy will be magical 0W-minus50 Rainbow Unicorn Urine that's so thin and so slick and so colorful and so good for the environment that little birdies circle and sing while it puts fuel back in the tank as you run the engine but it costs $1000/quart and only lasts for one weekend or a trip to San Franciso -- whichever comes first.

Interesting he was worried about Moly levels in a truck engine, and magnesium is used as a normal additive to oil as well.

Motorcraft 15w40 diesel oil (Dino), uses primarily calcium as a cleaning agent whereas most other oils i have had analyzed use mixes of calcium, magnesium and boron.

I'm not sure where the magnesium came from, the guy left that out of his last post. There is good-moly and bad-moly, then there is dousing-your-diesel-with-freshly-mined-dust-moly which is probably not-good-for-it-at-all-moly.


Archoil sells a potassium borate oil additive as AR9100 – Nanoborate Friction Modifier and System Cleaner. The 6-liter Ford diesel guys seem to love it because it's not oil of serpente, it actually works and a lot of folks were strung out on Rev-X. Apparently Rev-X doesn't work as well and costs a lot more. Rev-X uses Chevron's version of potassium borate: OLOA 9750.

I have no idea what nanoborate is or how it stacks up against Chevron with F310, errr, OLOA 9750 but the two companies don't seem to like each other. I'm not going to link to either product so you can look them up if you're interested but Archoil recommends AR9100 for motorcycles with wet clutches.

I don't know if I should be mad, glad or sad about whatever-boron but there's a duel going on and that insidious Beetlejuice Banana Boat Song and Death Valley Days are behind it.


Beetlejuice



Death Valley Days


.

[Bonz]

I really liked Mobil 1 15W-50 in the ZRX. Shift quality stayed high for 5000 miles, which is when I changed it so no telling how long it may have gone fom that standpoint. But much easier on oil than the XS by a long site.

Using less expensive oil only makes sense in the XS with the necessitated shorter oil change intervals. Yamaha had it figured pretty well when they spec'd 2500 miles. The only time I had a real loss of shifting feel/precision/false neutrals everywhere, was at the Durango Rally, dang extreme hot temps at high elevation had the 15w-40, at the end of it's change interval, thinned out like broth I am sure. Shifting returned to "pretty good" for the ride home from the rally, and an oil change ensued the next weekend when CZ came down to assist with a valve check/adjust.

[3Phase]

I got somewhere around 3K before I had to change the oil in Louisiana when I rode back East to XSSE and the oil still looked pretty good.

That was mostly continuous highway miles without a lot of low speed, short hop and warm up/cool down riding that dumps fuel in the oil until the pistons get hot and fit the cylinders again. I was really glad I had good oil in the engine then and not a cheap belly full of wax.

.