detergant vs. non detergant oil

Should i run detergant oil in my 8n? I have synthetic in it now but was wondering if I should change it to detergant

Stick with what you got. When you drain oil you never get it all so if you change oil types you end up with a mish-mash.

Your synthetic oil is a detergent oil , it's fine ...

I like the synthetic mix oil. Not as much cost and you keep a VERY clean internal engine. My Troy pony mower is five years old and pulled the valve cover to set the gap. The internals were SPOTLESS. Love it in OHV engines as no carbon build up. Use something like 5w50 or such in your 8n. The 5 gives easy cold weather start and the 50 keeps oil pressure when summer hot. My 2$. Jeffcat

I have used 15w40 in everything on the place since buying first diesel truck in 1989. I believe air cooled benifits from detergent and added ability to hold up to heat.

syn is detergent oil....

non detergent oil was oil made up to the mid to late 50s... all modern oils will have additives that make them "detergent" oil by default. Oil additives to fight acids end up having a by product of cleaning. So you end up with the cleaning effect by the addition of the base additives. The only engines that NEED non detergent oil are engines that have the old "poured babbit" bearings as the newer oils will actually clean the babbit off the bearings. So... if you have a poured babbit bearing engine, you MUST run non detergent oil. In this case you will have to go find a true non detergent oil.

Additves are added to..

fight piston scuffing
keep rings free
stop cam wear
stop cam follower wear
dry starting wear after sitting a long time
reduce deposits on piston crowns
reduce oil vaporized out the breather
reduce thickening
cold starting and cranking
high temp
reduced waxing and sludge
extreme pressure additives that activate only when an part start to overheat.
fiction reducers
fight acids due moisture and sulpher creating suphuric acids

and many more..

These were all items identified and fixed by adding additives. So why would you ever run a non detergent raw oil out of the ground?

A friend of mine was given a 2 gal jug of 30 wt non detergent.
He didn't know what to with it so offered it to me.
We decieded it wouldn't hurt to use it in the oil cups on our air filters.
Probably take a few years to use 2 gals though.

Interesting posting on poured babbit bearings and non-detergent oil. Almost all the better engine bearings are still babbit bearings. (The cheaper ones use aluminum for the bearing surface.) The difference is in the thickness of the layer of babbit. Most bearings you will see will have steel outer shells with a layer of copper to bond the babbit to the steel. When you see the copper showing on a bearing shell the babbit bearing material is all gone in that area.

Back about the mid 70s bearing manufacturers started using nickel instead of copper for a bonding material. It was cheaper but soon was shown to be an inferior design. The nickel was too hard for any debris to be imbedded in the bearing and resulted in many crankshafts that were ruined. Engine manufacturers started recommending replacing engine bearings at every 100,000 miles.

Bingo.

The use of detergent v non detergent oil has much more to do with the introduction of engine oil filters than bearing material.

Dean

Thanks everyone looks like I'll leave it in it

I run non-detergent oil in my pressure washer engine. I know you "shouldn't" get any water in the oil, but it still ends up there. Water + detergent + spinning crankshaft = foam. Foam doesn't lubricate like oil should. I never had an issue, but noticed the foam a while back and switched. Maybe it's circumstance, but I haven't seen any foam like that after I switched.

Non-detergent oil is only fit for preventing rust on chains. I've run good name brand detergent oils in everything I own. Yes, including a number of engines with poured babbitt bearings. Teardowns after 25 years of use showed no measurable wear or deterioration of bearings. That's good enough for me!!

Depends on what was previously used in the tractor or if a new rebuild?

If it always had detergent oil or a new rebuild then use detergent oil.

If it hasn't been rebuilt in a while and was using non-detergent stick with it. I wouldn't want the detergent in the oil dissolving all the old dirt in the engine. It will wear the bearings faster and I've even heard of it plugging (old clumps of dirt) oil passages and spinning a bearing.

I would defiantly not use a synthetic oil and recommend that you drain it now and replace it with a non-synthetic.

Synthetic oils are really 5wt or lighter oils with modifiers so they will act like 30wt oils in modern high temp engines --- and they have thinner films. Your relatively low temp old engine was designed for and needs the thicker oil film. Synthetic oil will actually wear the bearings in your engine faster.

By the way, you don't have an engine oil life issue as the old mineral oil will last a lot longer than the change interval. It's the dirt and moisture that accumulate in oil that cause the problem. Second reason not use synthetic is cost - your wasting money on something your tractor doesn't need. In fact it could be killing it.

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