M35a2 oils

[rustystud]

Might have to swap the Rotella T to Rottella T6 next time around.
T6 is not recommended for many engines due to the high phosphate level within the ZDDP.
Still learning here how about you.
more food.
View attachment 585800
and a snack
View attachment 585801View attachment 585802

What really gets me angry is "Morons" like this Steve Maas who by his own admission is NOT a mechanical or oil engineer but an electrical engineer will come out and say "This is the way it is because I said so !" even though they have NO knowledge of this subject and people will listen to them !
As a Master ASE Mechanic for over 35 years, who has worked through this whole time of oil change and seen what has happened to the engines I can personally tell you that Zinc is needed in older non roller cam engines. Like that second paper said about all the statements of the GM oil guy. He is coming at this problem from a stand point of older cars being something made 10 years ago! Which most if not all have roller cams . Like I have said time and time again, we are a "fringe" group to the mainstream automotive industry and our needs are of no concern to them !
For those here who just like to argue about what is best I have already given you "facts" about zinc additives and will no longer play this game. It's your engine, do with it as you please. Just don't come crying about your bad cam and expect any sympathy here.

 

[Another Ahab]

What really gets me angry is "Morons" like this Steve Maas who by his own admission is NOT a mechanical or oil engineer but an electrical engineer will come out and say "This is the way it is because I said so !" even though they have NO knowledge of this subject and people will listen to them !

You're not getting upset or anything here; are you rustystud!?

 

[turnkey]

Take my MV to the shop for yearly service on all filters and fluids and of course windshield blades...They use the Shell oils also....Works fine so far ...Again thanks for the info on the shell oils and gear lube...

 

[TB58]

Hmmm after reading this I will going and getting some Zinc additive.

 

[AZK9]

Hmmm after reading this I will going and getting some Zinc additive.

After reading (and studying) this entire thread... I too am planning to increase the Zinc levels.

Since the multifuel does not have a catalytic converter, I'm thinking it'd be be a good thing to add without
bringing about any of the negative side effects which seem to be of concern to the EPA.

 

[AZK9]

This topic is of great interest to me since I recently picked up my very first M35A2. It's a 1970 multifuel and I want to do the very best I can for it. Making sure it is 'revitalized' with good, clean and effective lubricants is one of my first priorities as the new owner of this awesome machine! I have looked over the TM's and have gained a lot from those documents, but this thread is so full of information that I'm researching things further.


While reading here and searching the web... I've come in contact with a great deal of information about many of the new-and-improved, 'modern oils' designed, primarily, for newer vehicles. Now... while I tend to like modern developments as much as the next guy, my M35A2 is anything but modern. So... my main interest now is rooted in discovering things directly related to the well-being of my 'old Army truck'.

I’m no expert by any means, but I am searching for what is best for my multifuel and I seem to be finding information which suggests that ‘modern’ lubricants might actually be harmful and damaging to my big-old-truck.

According to several sites, it appears that certain essential ingredients/additives, once commonly
contained in older lubricant formulations, have 'recently' been removed from many modern formulations to the detriment of some older vehicle technologies (such as those engineered into the M35A2 gearbox).

Although not directly discussing military vehicles, the link below does present an interesting read on the topic of new lubricant formulations causing extensive and costly damage to older motor vehicle components and systems.

http://www.ttalk.info/Zddp.htm

Here is a short segment from the link that seems to lend support to the idea that zinc, for example, ought to be considered a critically important ingredient in lubricating an older style gearbox:
_____________________________________________
“ By: Keith Ansell, Foreign Parts Positively, Inc."

"About a year ago I read about the reduction of zinc dithiophosphate (ZDDP) in the oils supplied with API approval that could affect sliding and high pressure (EP) friction in our cars. The reduction of these chemicals in supplied oil was based on the fact that zinc, manganese and/or phosphates reduce the effectiveness and eventually damage catalytic converters and introduce minute amounts of pollutants into our atmosphere.

A month or so ago I had a member of the Columbia Gorge MG Club bring a totally failed camshaft and lifters back to me that had only 900 miles on them!! I immediately contacted the camshaft re-grinder and asked how this could happen. They were well aware of this problem as they were starting to have many failures of this type. In the past, the lack of amolybdenum disulfide camshaft assembly lubricant, at assembly, was about the only thing that could create this type of problem. My customer has assembled many engines and had lubricated the camshaft properly and followed correct break in procedures. “
_____________________________________________

Although not a scientific, or laboratory based website… I found the information to be similar to several other lubrication ‘reads’ which tended to be supportive of zinc as an essential additive in older vehicles like my new... old deuce.

In any case: I'm learning and enjoying my OD gold in the process!

 

[rustystud]

You're not getting upset or anything here; are you rustystud!?

I was coming down with food poisoning last night as I wrote that, which as I write this I'm still battling . If I didn't know better I would say my wife was trying to get rid of me ! This is one of those topics that really upsets me though. I have lived this ! I have personally seen and repaired engines that this has effected and then to have some self appointed "expert" tell me that what I know for a fact is really just imaginary folk lore pisses me off to no end ! As far as the GM guy coming out and say what he did is just them covering there A$$ from lawsuits. When they changed the diesel fuels over 10 years ago to meet the EPA regulations we lost so many injection pumps it wasn't even funny. In one years time we had to replace over 600 pumps ! Of course they totally denied that the fuels could cause any damage ! Since we are a government agency no one tried to get a hold of the media and tell them this new fuel formulation was garbage, but all of us mechanics knew the real story. This is the same thing with the oils. Now though the public is driving vehicles that are not effected so no one really cares. It's just the hot-rod and collector community that is feeling the effects. I'm really glad though that people here are taking the time and researching this for themselves. The truth is out there !
Just realized that makes me sound like a conspiracy nut job ! Of well, what are you going to do ? I know I'll get agent "Scully" over to help us fight all the "alien" anal probing's !

 

[Aussie Bloke]

G'day everyone,....



Actually its funny that you mention fuel and injector pumps,....
I was wanting to know what the difference in regular diesel and this new hi-octane diesel is?
Any benefit to us?

Or maybe best left for another thread,....?




Aussie.

 

[rustystud]

G'day everyone,....



Actually its funny that you mention fuel and injector pumps,....
I was wanting to know what the difference in regular diesel and this new hi-octane diesel is?
Any benefit to us?

Or maybe best left for another thread,....?




Aussie.

I haven't heard of any "new" diesel fuel just Diesel #1 and Diesel #2 . Diesel #2 is the one used in automotive use, though they do blend in some Diesel #1 into the Diesel #2 in winter since Diesel #1 flows better at lower temperatures. Diesel fuel is rated by "cetane" level. Number 1 being lower but flowing better at lower temperatures. So if they have come up with a Diesel #3 I haven't heard of it yet. Of course there is the "Bio-Diesel" also.

 

[Aussie Bloke]

G'day everyone,...


Sounds like your Diesel#1 is what we call 'Alpine Diesel'
That is used in winter in the snow fields.

I will have to see about getting some pic/ literature about it.





Aussie.

 

[pjwest03]

The traditional fuel oil distillates have #'s 1-6. #1 is main component of #1 diesel, #2 yada, yada... There was a #3 that's not used anymore. #4 is heaviest that's still usable without preheating. #5 and #6 are residual oils from the distillation process and have to be pre-heated to flow. #6 is used in large marine engines and commonly referred to as bunker, although there are several grades of bunker. Of course, there are a myriad of names for them depending on the end use, what part of the world you're in, and who you work for. That particular Wikipedia article isn't horrible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_oil

 

[Another Ahab]

The traditional fuel oil distillates have #'s 1-6. #1 is main component of #1 diesel, #2 yada, yada... There was a #3 that's not used anymore. /QUOTE]

That's interesting detail pjwest03, thank you for the clarification.

I remember thinking that the whole distillation process ("cracking" I think it's called) was something complicated, and surprised to learn that the process is more or less passive:

- Filling up tall towers with raw crude oil and then drawing off the settled product at the various heights that it naturally settles (or something like that +/-).

 

[pjwest03]

Cracking is a different bit of chemistry/wizardry all together. Distillation is the first part of the refining process. The process for the most part ends there for oils, kerosene and such. Catalytic cracking and reformation are most frequently applied to making gasoline. The optimum molecule for gasoline is octane, with a chain of 8 carbons. This can be either strings or rings with rings being the optimum for combustion in modern engines. Cracking comes into play as the distillation process does not produce enough gasoline with enough octane to meet the demand. With high heat in the presence of a catalyst (read as expensive metals and nasty chemicals), they "crack" the longer chain distillates into smaller molecules. This feeds a second process called reformation that takes the cracked molecules and makes them into octane rings.

 

[rustystud]

Cracking is a different bit of chemistry/wizardry all together. Distillation is the first part of the refining process. The process for the most part ends there for oils, kerosene and such. Catalytic cracking and reformation are most frequently applied to making gasoline. The optimum molecule for gasoline is octane, with a chain of 8 carbons. This can be either strings or rings with rings being the optimum for combustion in modern engines. Cracking comes into play as the distillation process does not produce enough gasoline with enough octane to meet the demand. With high heat in the presence of a catalyst (read as expensive metals and nasty chemicals), they "crack" the longer chain distillates into smaller molecules. This feeds a second process called reformation that takes the cracked molecules and makes them into octane rings.

Sounds like you've worked in this industry ! I have a lot of questions, one being about why alcohol was introduced into our gasoline's. This causes more trouble then it's worth. Last week I had to take my carburetor apart to clean out the alcohol "globs" . If I don't run the tank dry in under 5 months this always happens. Plus the alcohol actually eats the aluminum. Do you know why they did this ? Was it politics? There is only 4 stations in my region that sells pure gasoline . The closest is one hour away.

 

[pjwest03]

Sounds like you've worked in this industry ! I have a lot of questions, one being about why alcohol was introduced into our gasoline's. This causes more trouble then it's worth. Last week I had to take my carburetor apart to clean out the alcohol "globs" . If I don't run the tank dry in under 5 months this always happens. Plus the alcohol actually eats the aluminum. Do you know why they did this ? Was it politics? There is only 4 stations in my region that sells pure gasoline . The closest is one hour away.

I'm not affiliated with the industry. Just a bit of education in organic chemistry on the way to other things. My family has been deeply into motorsports for a long time. That left me as the official unofficial family engineer. Leading me to a fair bit of educating myself on fuels, oils, engines...

I don't know if can adequately portray the true politics of it all. However, I have my personal understanding of the story that leads to ethanol in gasoline. Forgive me if this turns into a "first there was nothing then it exploded" story.

We start with low octane gasoline, engine knock, and tetra-ethyl lead being the cure by raising the effective octane rating of gasoline. The lead also provided the benefit of lubricating the valve seats preventing the wear caused by the valves micro-welding themselves to the seats. It became fairly undisputed that spewing lead around wasn't good for human health. It wasn't a huge problem in the 1920's, not a lot of cars. By the 1970's it was different story.

There was a need to replace the lead and on the political front, the Clean Air Act was amended to require the use of an oxygenating additive to reduce soot and carbon monoxide. There are a lot of choices with various issues and costs. Most of them are alcohols or ethers. The industry came along with MTBE (methyl tertiary-butyl ether). Something they could make cheaply without much investment. MTBE served the purpose, raising the octane rating and oxygenating the fuel but, it's water soluble. It tastes like **** in very tiny amounts in water and spreads around the environment quite easily. Basically, people can't stand to drink water contaminated with MTBE. Panic ensued on the political front even though there are no proven health effects from MTBE that I'm aware of.

The corn lobby and their big industrial companies got involved, ADM, Con-Agra, and friends. They pushed ethanol as the replacement. The laws that I know of don't specifically require ethanol but politics and industry subsidies prevailed. Ethanol does the intended job with the drawbacks that you are all too familiar with.

I hope this was useful...

 

[brianp454]

Nice summary! It is a bit of a tangent, yet related to why the oil and other lubricant formulations are not what they used to be. Like many laws and regulations, the use of ethanol in gasoline has outlived its usefulness. When it was first mandated nearly all gasoline powered vehicles were carbureted with little or no emission controls. Those of us that recall the early emissions controls know they really sucked – power was down and economy was down. Technology has changed dramatically. Now, we have microcontrollers (the CPU type is not important, the computing power, ability to interface with many sensors, and low cost are) with the power to make adjustments real time, lambda sensors, throttle position sensors, temperature sensors (usually coolant and incoming air), manifold absolute pressure sensors, etc. All this feedback allows engineers to tweak the FW on the microcontroller to keep the engine running within very tight parameters, thus controlling emissions and optimizing transfer efficiency. With all this, we don’t need ethanol in gasoline. Now we have the negatives without the positives. With our politics and the corn ethanol “pork gravy train” it is unlikely we’ll see an end to this soon.

As an engineer, I’ve made a multitude of decisions around trade-offs, optimization, etc. It’s where concept meets reality. Unfortunately, our politicians and the lack of education in the general public make a discourse impossible. Somehow it is “green” to say that all optimization has to be one sided or one consideration is given far too much weight while neglecting other considerations, thus the system as a whole and society, the environment, the economy, etc. suffer. Sad but true.

 

[daytonatrbo]

As an engineer, I’ve made a multitude of decisions around trade-offs, optimization, etc. It’s where concept meets reality. Unfortunately, our politicians and the lack of education in the general public make a discourse impossible. Somehow it is “green” to say that all optimization has to be one sided or one consideration is given far too much weight while neglecting other considerations, thus the system as a whole and society, the environment, the economy, etc. suffer. Sad but true.

This is an issue in so many ways.

The fact that a bunch of senators that can't even use facebook correctly have the power to make far reaching changes to how we consume the internet is terrifying.

 

[VPed]

Hold on now, some of us like the ethanol. I have an old school Pontiac with high compression and a lumpy cam. I had to use race fuel in the thing @ $10 to $12 / gallon. I converted to E85 and can fuel up at the corner store. I know some people have problems with the gooey stuff that forms in the carb but I can let the car sit for 2 month and it will start and run just fine. I do not know why I do not have a problem and others do. I run an old quadrajet out of a bone yard. It gets decent mileage (15-17 mpg while driving in a manner that puts a smile on my face), absolutely will not overheat, and costs $2 /gallon. The exhaust smells better than on gas too.

Again, a bit of a tangent. Now, back to your regularly scheduled program.

Regular STP has ZDDP in it.

 

[Another Ahab]

Regular STP has ZDDP in it.

I feel a little bit here on this thread like I'm auditing a Chemistry course, and a Political Science course at the same time (but it's Pass/Fail, so it's all good).

But I lost track a little (still not ready for a tutor yet though):

- Is ZDDP one of the zinc additives that's been thrown around here?

 

[rustystud]

I feel a little bit here on this thread like I'm auditing a Chemistry course, and a Political Science course at the same time (but it's Pass/Fail, so it's all good).

But I lost track a little (still not ready for a tutor yet though):

- Is ZDDP one of the zinc additives that's been thrown around here?

Yes, its the brand I prefer.