Fully synthetic engine oil?

aidan

Member
Location
Ireland
Yes it does. Apart from becoming saturated with contamination so that the contaminants fall out of suspension an form sludge and thicker oil, combined heat and shear forces will cause the viscosity to break down so that it becomes as thin as water and the film thickness that protects surfaces by keeping them apart and frictionless totally loses its effectiveness. Which happens first depends on the engine and type of use to which it is put.

@Cowabunga quick question just for PigIron, if I was to put E7 into a Perkins 4,236, an engine designed to run on SUTO, how often would I need to change the oil

With SUTO oil the oil change interval would be 250hrs of an electric clock

Im thinking I could leave it there for nearly 500hrs
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
@Cowabunga quick question just for PigIron, if I was to put E7 into a Perkins 4,236, an engine designed to run on SUTO, how often would I need to change the oil

With SUTO oil the oil change interval would be 250hrs of an electric clock

Im thinking I could leave it there for nearly 500hrs

I dare say you could. Just keep an eye out for contamination level. Or more practically, once it gets over 350 hours, rub a bit between your thumb and forefinger to judge whether its still in good condition, which it should be unless the engine is quite worn. Use your common-sense, basically.
Pretty sure that the 236 and 248 had 300 hour intervals on mechanical clocks at one time, so 500 electric hours may well not be much longer in reality and depending on the type of use.
 

Maico490

Member
I visited the Shell research centre many moons ago. Bloke showing us around said he'd rather we all used their oil but also admitted that the other main names sold good oil too. His quote that I will always remember was "cheap oil is the most expensive thing you will ever buy"
 
@Cowabunga quick question just for PigIron, if I was to put E7 into a Perkins 4,236, an engine designed to run on SUTO, how often would I need to change the oil

With SUTO oil the oil change interval would be 250hrs of an electric clock

Im thinking I could leave it there for nearly 500hrs
The trouble with running modern oils in older engines is the too much detergents in them
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
The trouble with running modern oils in older engines is the too much detergents in them
Its not a problem in a well used engine. The detergents and dispersants are just what's needed to keep the engines [not the oil] clean. Problems can arise if the old engines hasn't previously had good oil or its servicing has been neglected so that it has a lot of internal deposits in the sump and around the head which shouldn't be there. A high performance oil will possibly loosen those semi-solid deposits which may do more harm than good.
Super Universal oils are high detergent anyway, so its only engines that have well exceeded their service hours and time interval for services that should pose a problem, but they would probably be a problem with being refilled with super universal or standard Diesel engine oil anyway.
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
I visited the Shell research centre many moons ago. Bloke showing us around said he'd rather we all used their oil but also admitted that the other main names sold good oil too. His quote that I will always remember was "cheap oil is the most expensive thing you will ever buy"

You can buy perfectly good quality oil at different prices. I bought a barrel of ENI brand engine oil last year substantially cheaper than more well known brands. It meets exactly the same performance standards as more expensive lubricants that claim to meet those standards.
ENI is not one of these local blenders either, its a huge oil company with refineries and blending plants on a massive scale. Probably one of the biggest oil companies you've never heard of.
 

puntabrava

Member
Location
Wiltshire
I visited the Shell research centre many moons ago. Bloke showing us around said he'd rather we all used their oil but also admitted that the other main names sold good oil too. His quote that I will always remember was "cheap oil is the most expensive thing you will ever buy"
I have never known a Diesel engine to go bang because of oil quality, has anyone here been told the problem was that cheap oil you used?
 

nick...

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
south norfolk
You can buy perfectly good quality oil at different prices. I bought a barrel of ENI brand engine oil last year substantially cheaper than more well known brands. It meets exactly the same performance standards as more expensive lubricants that claim to meet those standards.
ENI is not one of these local blenders either, its a huge oil company with refineries and blending plants on a massive scale. Probably one of the biggest oil companies you've never heard of.
They have sponsored ducati in world superbikes in the past.as you say a huge concern
Nick...
 

Y Fan Wen

Member
Location
N W Snowdonia
Its not a problem in a well used engine. The detergents and dispersants are just what's needed to keep the engines [not the oil] clean. Problems can arise if the old engines hasn't previously had good oil or its servicing has been neglected so that it has a lot of internal deposits in the sump and around the head which shouldn't be there. A high performance oil will possibly loosen those semi-solid deposits which may do more harm than good.
Super Universal oils are high detergent anyway, so its only engines that have well exceeded their service hours and time interval for services that should pose a problem, but they would probably be a problem with being refilled with super universal or standard Diesel engine oil anyway.
Dad told me that back in the days when an engine would have a rebore and valve grind at about 50k miles pretty well as a matter of course, he used a pickaxe to loosen the deposits he found in one sump. He claimed that well over half the volume of the sump oil storage was taken up by something with the consistency of coal.
 

jpd

Member
Location
rep of irl
236 and 248 in mf have 250 hours or less change intervals
even with e7 imo the max interval should not be exceeded.
my 248 and 236 i change at 200 hours using shell e7.
some modern motors hold so much oil in the sump
i,d follow manufactures recommendations.
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
236 and 248 in mf have 250 hours or less change intervals
even with e7 imo the max interval should not be exceeded.
my 248 and 236 i change at 200 hours using shell e7.
some modern motors hold so much oil in the sump
i,d follow manufactures recommendations.

The 236 and 248 have fairly large sumps, holding 2 gallons if I remember correctly. The 165 with the 212 engine had half a gallon less in the sump, unless my memory is playing tricks. The 100 series all had 300 hour oil change intervals I think, the same as the horrendously filthy Ford 5000.
Later tractors did indeed have 250 hour intervals, but a significant minority of farmers miss services by a significant margin quite regularly in my experience. Generally there is no problem because that margin is taken into consideration by the tractor manufacturer.

An example of this is that Perkins and Sisu engines in MF tractors until recently have had 400 hour service intervals, yet the same engines fitted to other brands like McCormick and Valtra have had 500 hour service intervals.
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
I have never known a Diesel engine to go bang because of oil quality, has anyone here been told the problem was that cheap oil you used?

Cheap oil combined with heavy work, yes. Some oils can lose their viscosity when used in extremely heavily loaded engines and before the recommended service inteval. I had that experience with the air cooled Same Titan on the forager. It runs hotter than most other engines.
It has 150 hour oil change intervals with filter change every second time. I used to use standard ECEA E2 quality 15w/40 oil in it but at anything over 130 hours of full load work it would turn into something like cat pee quite suddenly and be consumed in massive volumes, like 2 litres between midday and supper time. Changed the oil at the next break, like supper time, and it was good to go again with no consumption. I kept my eye on it so didn't suffer any failure or undue wear.

However, when I changed to ACEA E3 oil, I never had that problem again even up to 160 hours service.

Next door bought 'green barrel' engine oil with no brand name on it, many years ago, and seized the engine solid on their Ford 5000 within the 300 hour service interval.
 

puntabrava

Member
Location
Wiltshire
Cheap oil combined with heavy work, yes. Some oils can lose their viscosity when used in extremely heavily loaded engines and before the recommended service inteval. I had that experience with the air cooled Same Titan on the forager. It runs hotter than most other engines.
It has 150 hour oil change intervals with filter change every second time. I used to use standard ECEA E2 quality 15w/40 oil in it but at anything over 130 hours of full load work it would turn into something like cat pee quite suddenly and be consumed in massive volumes, like 2 litres between midday and supper time. Changed the oil at the next break, like supper time, and it was good to go again with no consumption. I kept my eye on it so didn't suffer any failure or undue wear.

However, when I changed to ACEA E3 oil, I never had that problem again even up to 160 hours service.

Next door bought 'green barrel' engine oil with no brand name on it, many years ago, and seized the engine solid on their Ford 5000 within the 300 hour service interval.
Air cooled engines are under more stress than water cooled, hence there near extinction in the diesel department, my Scanias use no engine oil when inside there change period but start to go outside and useage starts. My first tractor that I owned was a Ford 7710 and were recommended to drop the oil every 100 hours:brb:, seems crazy nowadays.
 

Farmer_Joe

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
The North
egr and dpf can really give heavy deposits in the oil (dpf on some engines can dump derv into oil too diluting it), if you using a high spec oil in and older engine you could prob extend the interval but oil relatively aint expensive so i would change often.

Just mentioning how good modern oils are i had a audi 2.0t pertol engine that had a timing chain failure (design fault thanks audi) it had aprox 135k and when i got the head off there was literally no detectable ware on the block, quite impressive i thought.
 

Qman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Near Derby
New John Deeres now have a 750 hour oil change interval, it seems madness to me. I change mine every 300 hours with JD Plus 50 11, not that I've got a new one. If you haggle the dealer you can get it at the same price as the Shell equivalent.

Over the years as oils have improved I've used the new oil in my IH 414 with no ill effect at all. My IH 475 with the Perkins 212 engine has this routine also with no problem.
 

Mursal

Member
Filtakleen a UK company do a bypass filter system, to get them awkward little bits out.
On the bypass from the oil gallery the oil is on vacation so can be cleaned more thoroughly. Than the ordinary oil filter fitted between the oil pump and main oil gallery where the oil is working hard.
 

Robt

Member
Location
Suffolk
As nick has already alluded to.... when I used to race single cylinder four stroke motor bikes. The first time you rode one with fully synth in it the difference was amazing. I think because very little was rubber mounted you could feel the difference through your boots... used to use rock oil and the smell of a hot engine running on it was bliss....
 

Toby_1

Member
Location
Finland
Later tractors did indeed have 250 hour intervals, but a significant minority of farmers miss services by a significant margin quite regularly in my experience. Generally there is no problem because that margin is taken into consideration by the tractor manufacturer.

An example of this is that Perkins and Sisu engines in MF tractors until recently have had 400 hour service intervals, yet the same engines fitted to other brands like McCormick and Valtra have had 500 hour service intervals.

So would your assumption be that the 500 hour service interval on McCormick and Valtra still includes a "significant margin"? Very interested to hear your thoughts and assumptions.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.9%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 63 34.2%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.3%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 6 3.3%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,287
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top