Synthetic diesel lube oil

[joeniver]

I am trying to find oil that is not as viscous as my 15W40.

Would like to know if the Shell Rotella T6 - 0W40, Synthetic diesel oil is OK to use in my Yanmar with the temperatures between 10 F degrees and 50 F degrees.

What are the downsides and what are the upsides.

Thanks

[Lepke]

Why not call Shell or Yanmar?

[Chotu]

Please disregard. I read the original post incorrectly.

[billknny]

Originally Posted by joeniver

I am trying to find oil that is not as viscous as my 15W40.

Would like to know if the Shell Rotella T6 - 0W40, Synthetic diesel oil is OK to use in my Yanmar with the temperatures between 10 F degrees and 50 F degrees.

What are the downsides and what are the upsides.

Thanks

I'll give you short odds that Yanmar has recommendations for low temperature oils for your engine. The downside of not following them is insufficient lubrication and an earlier death for your engine.

Follow Yanmar's recommendations for viscosity and service rating for oils. Unless you know more about engines and oils than they do...

[acem]

In my expience with engines you are on the right path. The newer low viscosity synthetic oils are much better at startup than the older oils.
For alot of great info on oils got to bobtisheoilguy.com.
Thx-Ace

[Compass790]

Originally Posted by joeniver

I am trying to find oil that is not as viscous as my 15W40.

Would like to know if the Shell Rotella T6 - 0W40, Synthetic diesel oil is OK to use in my Yanmar with the temperatures between 10 F degrees and 50 F degrees.

What are the downsides and what are the upsides.

Thanks

Pretty sure you will be fine. However if engine is still under warranty you will have to stick to Yanmars recommended viscosity or don't tell them.
You are tougher than me mate boating in those temps. I think I'd go the 0w-40 route at those temps too. I use 0w-40 syn in my '93 toyota corona though Toyota says 10w-40. At over 300,000km & still using hardly any oil it hasn't proved to be a problem despite the dire warnings I got about using non-manufacturer recommended oil.
Only downside I could see is if your engine leaks oil it might leak it faster.
I use 20w-50 in our Yanmar but they say straight 30. i don't sweat it as I've used 20w-50 in much harder service than our little Yammer gets on the boat

People obsess about oils but as long as they meet the API std they should be ok.
If you have a turbo make sure it's a turbo rated oil but I'm sure it would be.

Are you having starting issues in those low temps?

[joeniver]

Starting issues, in so far as it takes longer to start: Maybe 10 or 15 revolutions as opposed to 2 or 3 in the summer. Also in the winter I set the throttle at 1200 RPM, but in the summer I can leave it at 700 rpm.

It is an old 3HM F from 1984 and it just purrrs. Must not have too many hours on it. Good point about the leaking out faster. Will be sure to check more often if I go with the synthetic.

I have only been sailing for 5 years and I have to to sailing or working on my sailboat almost everyday cause I love it so much. Am 65 so only have a limited number of years left. Moved from the mountains of New York State to the ocean for a girl. This is my hiking and camping and horses and farming and skiing!

Thanks for the help

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by joeniver

I am trying to find oil that is not as viscous as my 15W40.



Would like to know if the Shell Rotella T6 - 0W40, Synthetic diesel oil is OK to use in my Yanmar with the temperatures between 10 F degrees and 50 F degrees.



What are the downsides and what are the upsides.



Thanks

You will be fine, even in much higher temps, I’ve run it in my 4JHE in water and air temps in the 90’s. I have an oil pressure gauge, and it kept pressures just as good as straight weight 30W or 15W-40.
At your cold temps you will get oil flow quicker at start up and that is good.

The downside unless you have a turbo and run the snot out of your engine. You really don’t need that good of an oil, and it’s more expensive. There is a lot of I hate to say it but I consider nonsense about running too high a spec oil is bad for your engine, it’s not. There is an argument that you just don’t need it, and I agree with that.
For whatever it’s worth many of the dirt bike community and other racing motorcycles have adopted Rotella T6 as its excellent for lubrication and has a great detergent package, Diesel oils are better for wear protection, high temps and high stress, but often have additive packages that may not be kind to emissions controls on a gasoline motor. However I have been running T6 in the two high performance cars I have, a factory turbo Miata and a Cadillac CTS-V.

The only bad thing about high specification synthetics run in our little engines is that many think that if I run excellent oil, that I don’t have to change it as often and they extend their oil change intervals, and that’s a mistake.
We change our oil when it becomes soot laden, not when it breaks down, our little motors run at the temps and loads most of us do may never break down, but it does fill with soot, and soot is abrasive.

[Compass790]

[QUOTE=joeniver;3031614]Starting issues, in so far as it takes longer to start: Maybe 10 or 15 revolutions as opposed to 2 or 3 in the summer. Also in the winter I set the throttle at 1200 RPM, but in the summer I can leave it at 700 rpm.

If the slow starting bothers you here is a couple of things to try. If you are in a marina & have shore power use a hair dryer in the air intake whilst cranking.
If no shore power try spinning it up decompressed & then dropping the decompression lever whilst it is still spinning. Use heaps of throttle but be ready to back off as soon as it fires.
I certainly wouldn't expect an instant start at below freezing temps only using idle throttle.
You can also get silicone sump heater pads to warm the oil.
Hope that helps

[wsmurdoch]

This is what Yanmar says for your 3HM35F in the owners manual and in the shop manual. The images are not that great, but Google can find you both documents. In my experience Mack Boring is happy to answer questions over the phone.

Bill

[Scubaseas]

Mobil One Turbo Diesel 5W40 far exceeds anything on the list posted by wsmurdoch. It's a great all around synthetic diesel oil, turbo or not. I've run 5W40 Diesel in many a motor without any issues.

A 10W oil would certainly flow better at 10*F than any 15W.

[joeniver]

Originally Posted by wsmurdoch

This is what Yanmar says for your 3HM35F in the owners manual and in the shop manual. The images are not that great, but Google can find you both documents. In my experience Mack Boring is happy to answer questions over the phone.

Bill

I love MACK BORING. Got some nice documentation from them.
Thanks

[joeniver]

[QUOTE=Compass790;3031846]

Originally Posted by joeniver

Starting issues, in so far as it takes longer to start: Maybe 10 or 15 revolutions as opposed to 2 or 3 in the summer. Also in the winter I set the throttle at 1200 RPM, but in the summer I can leave it at 700 rpm.

If the slow starting bothers you here is a couple of things to try. If you are in a marina & have shore power use a hair dryer in the air intake whilst cranking.
If no shore power try spinning it up decompressed & then dropping the decompression lever whilst it is still spinning. Use heaps of throttle but be ready to back off as soon as it fires.
I certainly wouldn't expect an instant start at below freezing temps only using idle throttle.
You can also get silicone sump heater pads to warm the oil.
Hope that helps

Looking for a heater plug that fits in the 1/2" hole (3/4" wrench).110. Do you know where I can buy one?

[joeniver]

So true about dirty oil. If it is dirty, change it! No mater what it costs. And change the oil filter at the same time!

[a64pilot]

We all would like to think that 15W-40 oil is simply a 15 weight oil when cold and a 40 weight when hot, and you can find much data saying that, but as as with everything it’s not that simple.
Castrol European formula 0W-30 is actually a much higher viscosity oil than the number makes it sound, it’s an excellent oil and one I used to run in HiPo motors. Just using it for an example.
Regular oils get the multi-vis performance with additive packages, and additive packages are among the first things to degrade in an oil.
Some synthetics however simply act as if they are a multi-vis oil without additives, it’s just how some syn oil is.
Then as with everything else even the definition of what Synthetic is was the redefined via a lawsuit.
Read the third paragraph, thank you Castrol.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobil_1

Going by the owners manual isn’t always the best either, for instance due to my motors age, the manual specs an oil that is no longer available and hasn’t been for a long time, and then there is the fact that if you have an older engine, it was intended to run on relatively high sulphur oil, that isn’t available anymore, and the different fuel requires a different oil formulation, Lower sulphur means less acid which means high TBN oil isn’t needed anymore and is in fact nearly impossible to find and has been for quite some time.
Manufacturers don’t have crystal balls and can’t know what is going to be available 10, 20, or 30 years down the road.

He will be fine with the best, most expensive Diesel engine oil Shell manufactures.

However there is or soon will be Diesel oil available for the newest road Diesels that is formulated to protect their emissions controls and that oil may not be what we want in our older design motors.

So unless these oils are backwards compatible, maybe we should avoid the, one ai believe isn’t.
https://www.api.org/products-and-ser...oil-categories