Re: Engine Sludge

Posted by sotxbill on February 29, 2016 at 17:49:35 from (104.5.24.112):

In Reply to: Engine Sludge posted by showcrop on February 29, 2016 at 16:45:11:

In the 50s and 60s... ALL OIL created sludge to some degree. The source of the oil would determing how much wax and parrafins were in the oil. And oil from this era was distilled off at a certain temperature with no futher processing so you had RAW oil. Lots of ash, wax, parrafins, sulpher.... all depending on which well it came from and some wells, like east texas SWEET crude, or Arabian SOUR oil pending on the source. And caster oil was originally from caster beans, a very thin oil used by racers, but had to be drained from the engine immediately after the race or it turned to a waxy sludge.

All the oils would vaporize off the thinner components and leave a thicker and thicker oil behind. If you worked on engine in the 50s and 60s you saw some sludge in ALL engines.. the amount of sludge based on how often you changed your oil and the source of the raw crude.

In comes the late 60s, early 70s... refinery processes allowed the "pull off" to be more precise and a slightly cleaner base oil was being produced. Due to the cold war effort additive packages extended the viscosity of oils meaning that now a thin oil would perform as hot as a thicker non detergent oil would,, this meant better cold performance as well has great hot performance. Also additives to fight the creation of sulfuric acids from the sulfur and moisture mixing were added. Detergents that kept the wax molecules from sticking together started fixing the sludge problem. Additives to create clinging to metal, meant that "dry" starts were no longer a problem. Additive to prevent the lighter components from vaporizing off and leaving a thicker oil were added. Zinc and Phosphorous additives would cling and attach to any part that had extreme high heat, coat it and reduce the friction and stop the wear..... were added.

Back to your sludge question... yes you can still see it.. worse in some engines than others, and also based on type of oil used and timing of oil changes..... But lots of engine with 175000 miles on them are also clean as a whistle. When I first started in the machine shop in 1971,,,, ALL engines had sludge in them. Then I remember seeing my first mobil one engine and it was spotless. Came in at 125000, when most engines came in at 60,000 to 80,000 miles. The whole shop was in a uproar. Few years later and more and more oils were doing just as well. Yes you can still buy a non detergent oil, but why would any educated person buy a non detergent oil????? Non detergent oils are for sewing machines and poured babbit bearing engines ONLY. The additives in detergent oil will actually remove the soft babbit bearing material on a "poured babbit bearing" engine.

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