Oil ratings

[Alan Wheeler]

Guy's and girls, I am not sure if I should start into this. Mainly because I don't know where to stop with it. So I guess the easiest is to just keep it simple and anyone feel free to ask a question and I will try to answer it if I can.
"C" ratings. This is for Diesel oils only and the "C" actually stands for "comercial category".
CH-4 is now the highest grade rating, well for now anyway. But the "CF" grade is probably what you will find the most common.
CA, CB, CC, CD, CD-II and CE grades are all now obsolete

CF, CF-2, CF-4, CG-4 and CH-4 are all current.

CF (replacement for CD) was introduced in 1994 to meet the requirements of RTV's, indirect injected and engines using fuels with a sulphur weight over 0.5%

CF-4 (replacement for CD & CE) was introduced in 1990 for highspeed four stroke NA & Turbo engines.

CG-4 (replacement for CD, CE & CF-4) introduced in 1995 for highspeed 4 stroke and are specific for fuels with less than 0.5% sulphur and needs to be used in any engines meeting the 1994 emmisions standards.

CH-4 (replacement for CD, CE, CF-4 & CG-4) introduced in 1998 for highspeed 4stroke. It's designed for fuels upto 0.5% sulphur content.

Now here's some interesting points. There are actually special Marine Diesel Oils. Firstly, I'll start with a low standard oil,... the CC and CD grades. These are sometimes specified for engines that have some major problems glazing bores. Usually because the engine cylinder walls run much colder, the engine is not under a lot of load, all causing the "additive pack" to undergo a chemical change to form a Varnish.
You will note that these engines are often a Commercial Vehicle engine that has been Marinised and the manual for the vehicle engine will state API CF and the Marine version will state API CC or CD.

Now there also happens to be an association called the National Marine Manufacturers Association Oil Certification Committee (NMMA). Most commonly seen is there oil spec TC-W3 for 2stroke marine application. These guy's introduced an oil test spec for 4 stroke Marine engine oil called the 4T certification. Basicaly it has added corrosion inhibiters in it for the harsh Marine conditions an engine operates in.

[GordMay]

Excellent brief, Wheels!

Wear Check (an Oil Analysis lab’) has lots of technical documents, including:

How to Read a Can of Oil (Part 1):
http://www.wearcheck.com/literature/techdoc/WZA007.htm

How to Read a Can of Oil (Part 2):
http://www.wearcheck.com/literature/techdoc/WZA008.htm

and much more at:
http://www.wearcheck.com/literature/...ocType=techdoc

[Alan Wheeler]

Right now I am tired and need sleep. But I will reply to a few points in some of those articles tomorrow. Basicaly, there are some points I will de-nerdify so it is easier reading.
One quick glance at the Viscosity for instance. As noted there are several way's a rating has been drived. But in simple form, it is actually very simple. Oil is placed into a calibrated that simply measure the time it takes for a set amount of oil to pass through a specific size hole at a given temperature. So a 10W oil will take 10sec for say 400ml to pour through. I can't remember off top of my head, but I have all my notes on this and will brush up and post actualls tomorrow.

But to the point I was wanting to make. There are some oils now entering the market that have W ratings as low as 0W. Actually the 5W and 0W are actually the same. There is no difference. The difference is in the temperature that the oil stops flowing. 0W stops flowing at a slightly lower temp. That's all. So don't be fooled in thinking that a low number means better fluididty and it gets around your engine faster to stop wear. Even though the marketing is pushing it as that (at least it is here in NZ) the real story is slightly different.
Right, off to bed.

[Gallivanters]

Thanks for the oil info!

Remember the old style oil filters which used a roll of toilet paper as a replacable element?

I always use a Shell 40 wt (if available) her in the tropics and religiously try to change the engine oil every 150 hrs and replace the filter every 300 hrs.

I've heard a lot of positive things about Synthetic Oil lately and am curious if there are any formulated for diesel engines and if the additional price is cost effective considering that I sometimes change the oil on a weekly basis.

Lastly - I understand that some large commercial vessels use some sort of a centrifuge system to refine the engine oil and effectively eliminate the need for oil changes once-and-for-all and am wondering if such a system could be made for small engine applications?

Thanks,

Kirk

[GordMay]

Excerpted From: “An introduction to synthetic oils” ~ by Neil Robinson, BSc Hons
http://www.wearcheck.com/literature/techdoc/WZA012.htm

”... It is important to recognise that some synthetics are not necessarily interchangeable either with other synthetics and/or mineral oils. Equipment manufactures recommendations should be consulted before deciding on a particular type of synthetic lubricant. The use of a synthetic in a unit not suitable for it may cause difficulties, especially with respect to seal compatibility, paints and plastics, although material that is compatible with these lubricants is available in all areas ...”

[Alan Wheeler]

Synthetics in Diesels can be an argumentitive issue. In a nut shell, You have to be VERY careful about using such oils.
WARNING will Robinson!! DO NOT EVER EVER use additional additives in Diesels, especially Marine engines. You can cause major major headaches that will cost major money to rectify. Don't believe me? well just about every oil additive company is either undergoing or have undergone some hugely major lawsuits in the US. Additives either don't work, or work tooooo well. But mostly, in a marine engine, the additives cause major chemical instabilities and the oil breaks down into a varnish like sludge, PLUS, the bores will be highly likely to Glaze.

HOWEVER, in saying that, there are indeed some very good synthetic oils out there. Amzoil is one that I highly regard and is worth taking a look at.
I should also add, Synthetics are in Diesels are really only good for one thing.( I say this because a smal;l amount of wear in the bore is a good thing in a Diesel) Extended change cycles. I still advocate regular filter changes at the same cycles you would normally. But the oil can stay in the engine for a substaintial time. Amzoil have there own filters they recomend to be used if going for extended change cycles. But I think the overall cost has to be looked at here. Amzoil has been tested in NY taxi cabs to 60,000miles with no issues. The advantage in a boat situation for that longevity is alleviating difficulties in getting used oils out of the engine and difficulties disposing of the used oils. But you have to also way up the over all cost of the oil versus time and the cost of the filters which I imagine being substantialy more expensive than a standard filter, multiplied by that time.

[Alan Wheeler]

Kirk, yes, centrifugal oil cleaning machines are common on ships. Simply because they may have several tons of oil circulating the engine. These units are made by Alfa Lavel, the same company that makes Milk/Cream seperaters. They are very similar in how they work. Many ships enigneers can probably tell you some horror stories of these machines. Very scary to be around when one hasn't been put back together properly or if a disc fails. The discs are real big and spinning at warp drive.

There is also another version available to us mere mortals. Often found on long haul trucks. These units spin the oil using the oil pressure, at a very high speed within the filter. Like 60,000 RPM.
It settles a fair amount of crap out of the oil before flowing around the engine again.
I have been trying to track one down myself. so if I succed, or if anyone else does for that matter, Place a link to it on here please

[never monday]

Good job Wheels!!

hey Gallivanters.... wasn't that a "Franz" oil filter?? They worked really well at removing contaminants though at a slow rate of flow.

There is more to keeping oil effective than removing the dirt though. Back in my motorcyle racing days it was known (or believed) in the pits that oil would become chemicaly changed by mechanical action, principaly in motorbikes by the gearbox. It's the long string of the molecule that provides the viscosity and the molecules can actually be damaged and the string broken which was the reason for the drop in effectiveness even though low in contaminant. This was my understanding at the time anyway.

Alan, the info you and Gord have put up is great. The usual high standard and I can't wait to get into more of the links, well done!

An observation I do have is... Australian oils are garbage compared to what was in America, even though they are the same brand and designation. (In the US Castrol GTX was a good mineral oil suitable for high performance even if changed out often but the same label in OZ is wretched) It's difficult to find something good here and the prices for the stuff are higher. In the perkins in WhiteBird I used Pennzoil (american brand of course) but I heard lately they were now using local stuff in same container so...? I'll be looking very closely at the new codes.

Cheers
Bob

[Alan Wheeler]

WOW gord, I just read through your links and they are really great articles.

You were right Bob, but that is why the old CC CD and so on specs are now replaced. Back then, we didn't have engines that had the tolerances and demands that we do today.
For instance, have a guess when some of these specs came in
CA 19??
CB 19??
CD 19??
CC 19??
CE 19??
I'll post an answer later, but feel free to give them a shot. I think you will be shocked.

[Alan Wheeler]

Thanks for the kind comments by the way folks, but please please, I am no expert, so don't take my comments as if I am one OK.

Here's some more trivia. Did you know that there is per year in the US, 600 million Gallons of used oil unaccounted for, that is believed to be simply "dumped" or washed away or ??????. What ever, it simply hasn't been disposed of in the proper way.

Personly, I have a lot of respect for synthetics such as Amzoil. Only in that it saves on the amount of waste we throw away by increasing the cycle times.

Another oil I have a lot of respect for is Recycled oils, or more accurately, Rerefracted oils. These are the oils you have taken to the drop off centres for disposal. Old used oil can be used for several things, but much of it is rerefracted and made back into a good stable oil to put back into your engine. Now there is one very important aspect about these oils. "New" oil has a problem. This is the new stuff made directly from crude. Certain elements of new oil are unstable. And those elements can not be taken out in the first refining process. But while in your engine, these unstable elements become, err....unstable and fall out of the mix. There is also a further cracking process that takes place. Without getting to complex here, the basic point is that when the oil is refined again, those elements that couildn't be taken out in the first process, are taken out in the second. The result is that re-refined oils are actually better than virgin oils. They remain very stable in your engine. As long as the additive pack that is placed into the oil brings it up to meet the relevant specs, recycled oils are very good and very friendly to our environment and can save us valuable resources. My view is, that the public simply don't get to know about these oils as they should.

And finaly ( I can sense you all breathing a sigh of relief) there are some very cool lubricants on the horizon. In fact, there is one so cool, that it is a "life time lubricant". This means it never ever has to be replaced. These cool lubricants are called nanolubricants.
It is actually being made, although it takes a day to produce something around a pint, so it's not commercial yet. Plus it is not an "oil" as such, so pouring it into your car is a way off yet. In fact, it probably will never be. I mean, why make something that will put you out of business. But that is just my opinion.
But I can see it used as an additive in engine oils sometimes in the future. You can take a look at it here.
www.apnano.com
I can see something like this being used in sealed devices that are designed to be never serviced.

[CaptainK]

Wow Alan!!

I didn't know there was a marine grade diesel oil.

Man you really went informative on this one. I gotta hand it to ya Alan. Nice work on that article.

[hellosailor]

"and the "C" actually stands for "comercial category"." And here I was sure I had read the API definition in the US as C-for-Compression (a diesel engine works on compression) versus S-for-Spark (the traditional Otto Cycle engine in cars.)

Robinson's comment on synthetics seems to be out of context here. Synthetic oils, as in lubricants, can be a problem because petrochemicals and synthetics (i.e. nylon parts and lubricants for them) are not always compatible. But with *engine* oils, the synthetics are synthesized petroluem chemicals, they are not the same as the synthetic lubricants you buy in a spray can. They are simply man-made polymers of the same kind that get sucked out of the ground, or so I've read from several makers of them. For all intents and purposes they should not be confused with "synthetic lubricants" but rather they are "synthesized pterochemicals". (i.e. You can lubricate nylon parts with silicon grease, or lithum grease, both synthetic lubricants, but petro-based greases will break down the nylon.)

" Australian oils are garbage compared to what was in America, ...I used Pennzoil " Pennzoil is no longer what it was, nor are most US motor oils. Pennzoil's claim to fame originally was that it was made from the higher quality ("sweeter") oil stocks in Pennsylvania, not the Arabian crude. IIRC that hasn't been the case for a long time, there just isn't much oil left in Pennsylvania.<G> But US motor oils in general, in the 70's and 80's, broke down over 3-5,000 miles and failed to meet their original ratings by that time. Now, most of them retain their ratings for much longer periods.

The synthesized motor oils break down even less, simply because the product is engineered more tightly at the molecular level. And the SAE "W" ratings essentially measure only how fast the oil drips through a specific funnel at a specific temperature--not how well it lubricates. Making specific comparisons difficult.

I'm not surprised to hear Amsoil did well in a taxi fleet test. In 1985 I started using Mobil1 because I had access to engine teardown photos, from a taxi fleet test, which showed that Mobil1 had left no tar inside the valve covers after 50,000 miles of city fleet use, very different from any conventional motor oil at that time.

I'm surprised that marine engine manufacturers would still specify CC or CD grades, I wasn't aware that any oil makers were still making oil that did *not* exceed those grades. And our API (American Petroleum Institute) makes no mention of needing old grades, they say anything above a rated grade can be used to replace it. Very interesting.

Wheels, did the Kiwi translation (or was it dubed?) of Lost in Space really say "WARNING will Robinson!!" ??

In the US-English version, the robot used to say
"DANGER WILL ROBINSON!" <VBG>

[Gallivanters]

I just got off the phone with the senior service tech at Mastry Marine - the regional Yanmar distributer.

The ONLY lubricant they recomend is SHELL TELLUS 10W 40.

Have a great weekend!

Kirk

[Alan Wheeler]

Yeah I just used a "play on words" with "Warning".

I should be understood that oil in its self, is a poor lubricant in our modern day engines. It should be seen as a "Base" in which the actual properties that do the real work are suspended in. This is called the "additive pack" in the lubricant world. Yes there are different "qualities" of oil from where ever it comes out of the ground. But they are not qualities that always have to do with how good an oil performs. That is up to the additive pack. It is true however, that there will be chemicals in crudes, sulphur for one, that can have an affect on what the oil is used for. Sulphur can be taken out of oil, At a cost, and it is often costs and intended market and use, that will influence what happens to the "base".

HS your also Kinda right about the "C" rating. Officially, it is Commercial, but there is also an "official" industry way of remembering which is which by the example you gave. So although not technicaly right, the mojority know it as, the C stands for Compression and the S for Spark. It's become the defacto term over the years.

K, yes there is a Marine grade, but I have never seen it myself. I am not sure if we even have it in NZ. I would be interested if anyone has come across it and who is makeing it and blah blah.

Kirk, a multi grade oil has advantages and disadvantages. It main purpose is nothing more than a broad spectum temperature rating. Unfortunatly, marketing has lead people to believe they are supperior oils over mono grades. Actually a Mono grade oil is infact a superior grade. If anyone wants more details on why, just ask, otherwise I do realize I might be boring some people here.