The thing about oil analysis is that it can tell you about problems that are
occuring
before the damage becomes extensive.
One example: Did you know that even very small amounts of antifreeze in
your oil accelerates
engine wear almost exponentially ? Oil analysis can detect minute traces of
antifreeze. So before that blown head gasket grows from a very small leak
that does not effect drivability, to a major repair, you can detect
it before major bearing and ring damage is done. Now you can just do the
head grasket repair, instead
of a major overhaul/rebuild. Same with unburned fuel in the oil. This can
point to weak ignition, bad compression, etc.
On my GTS, I had a problem with excessive aluminum in the oil. This can
come from a few areas, but is almost always
piston wear. This is really bad, but with high aluminum you should also get
high iron from rings and cyl walls, but those readings were normal. I did a
compression check, and compression was fine. Everything tested fine, but
the
oil analysis indicated something was up. I later developed some clutch
chatter, nothing major but it was an irritant.
Turns out that there was a broken spacer/support item in the clutch assembly
that is made from aluminum, which was causing
the high readings (and the odd clutch behavior). I am now in the process
of replacing the clutch.
On my boat: The 454 had 1600 hours on it (like 200k miles on a car). I was
getting high iron, aliminum, tin and lead readings. The iron and aluminum
was from ring, piston and cylinder wear. The tin and lead indicates rapid
wear on the crank and rod bearings. Basically the engine was still going
strong, but seemed down in power about 5%. After 3 oil analysis showing a
increasing trend in wear, I knew the engine was rapidly wearing out. So
over the winter I arranged to have a new hi-po crate engine installed. No
boat downtime, I went from 330 hp to 430 hp, and I had the documents to
prove to my wife that I needed to do this !!
I also compared Castrol 20w-50, Mobil 1 and Amsoil on my boat engine. The
wear metals were significantly lower on the synthetics than the Castrol, and
the Amsoil was sightly better than the Mobil 1.
PS: Blackstone provides universal averages, so you can compare to other
owners engines.
-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Harrington [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2001 11:29 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Oil Analysis was RE: maintenance schedule
Peace of mind, Rob, and the opportunity to help our
mates on the list with accurate data on their
decisions about oil and filters (air and oil) as
opposed to advertising hype from the companies that
sell the stuff...
It's not about the money--it's about passion!
(quote from a friend @ a strip club...)
FL Kev
--- Rob Chapman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> So when you've done all these oil analyses and you
> get some results, then
> what do you do? Surely the recommended oils and
> filters work reasonably,
> and any savings made on other filters/oils are
> outweighed by the cost of
> analysis kits, etc!
> Just curious:} !
> Regards,
>
> Rob Chapman
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