30W Non-detergent - Or is there something better?

[sotxbill]

e3steve, I HAVE RUN SEVERAL TYPES OF OIL IN MY CL77. I HAVE FOUND THAT ANY OIL CONTAINING ANY SYNTHETIC COMPONENT TENDS TO ACCELLERATE ANY PRESENT OIL LEAK YOU HAVE ALREADY AND GIVE YOU A COUPLE MORE. IT SEEMS THE MOLICULE STRINGS IN SYNTHETIC OIL ARE VERY SHORT COMPARED TO PETROLEUM. THIS MAKES THE OIL THINNER AND LETS IT WEEP THROUGH WORN OIL SEALS OR GASKETS LONG BEFORE STRAIGHT PETROLEUM WILL. I HAVE USED SOME BLENDS IN MY BIKE (MOTULE 5100 PETROL-SYNTHEIC BLEND) BUT WAS FORCE TO RETURN TO STRAIGHT PETROLEUM (HONDA GN4) TO STOP THE WEEPS AND LEAKS. I AM NO EXPERT, THIS IS ONLY WHAT I HAVE EXPERIENCED.
FAST FRED

its the base additives in hd oils that remove sludge that cause worn gaskets to now leak. These base additives are there to fight acid build up and keep the oil from harming the engine. Howerver some gasket materials built in the 70s were silicon based and the alkali base materials will leach out the silicone and the gasket will get hard and crack. These types of gaskets were removed later as it was found out they were not compatable will modern motor oils.(cummins.fleetguard). Its this base additive that also cleans and dissolves the sludge.

When I was a youngster and worked in a machine shop, we have a giant vat that we boiled engine blocks and heads clean so we could then rebuild them. I always though it was acid, but every 6 months, we drained the vat, washed it out, then added 50 lbs of special lye or akali powder and then fired the vat back up again. The high base solution dissolves all grease and grime. Modern hd oils have a very high tbn or total base number.. lots of them are 13 and above... so yes,, if your engine is gunked up, new modern oils will by nature clean and suspend the dirt.

add any modern oil and it will "clean" you engine,, and then if you have any "lazy" gaskets, the will certain start to ozose or leak.. If you have old silcon gaskets, the modern oil will leach out the silicon and make the gaskets hard, although those gaskets were supposed to be gone.

non detergent single weight oils are made from heavy mixed parrafins chains, will wax up and fall out and sludge up the engine.. while it will not leak, it will provide poor lubrication, the heavy and long molecule chains will shear out and cause the sludge to form, the lighter molecules will then vaporize out the breather creating 10 to 20 percent loss, the residual viscosity will continue to thicken up dramatically, and offer less and less lubrication, Especially on start up. The lack of additives means that compustion gases will form acids that will eat away at bearings, and linners, epecially the mains and rod inserts. Piston scuffing will accellerate, lack of moly and high wear zzdp additives means the cams will start to peal off and score.

I was rebuilding a massey harris 33 tractor with a old engine. I clean about 1/2 inch of sludge out of the pan and found out the whole bottom of the pan was full on pin holes but the sludge had prevented it from leaking for years. As the pan was a low grade pot metal, it could no be soldered welded or brazed so I had to jb weld it. had to go 30 over on the crank and manufactor new oil pump gears to get this old beast back into service as an antique... The old tractor probably never saw 4000 hours on the clock where today, 12000 hours are common. remember that a mechanical rpm driven hour on a tractor is about 60 miles as its based on 114000 revolutions per hour on the engine give or take pending on max torque curve. Remember that when the honda 305 was built, car engines didnt last but 60,000 miles between overhauls and valve jobs were often done at 40,000 miles and oil changes with 30 wt oils had to be every 3000 miles and spark plugs every year or 10,000 miles if not sooner. I worked my way through college doing machine work and rebuiding autotranmissions.. which only did 40 to 50,000 miles in those days,, till the draft got me.

Sorry, got a bit carried away... There is no reason in the world to run 30wt non detergent oil in anything today.. No scientific reason. If there is a 'stamping" on the housing, it must have been left from when the honda hawk was made and there simply was no other oil choice availible, and doctors were still using bleeding and leaches to treat illnesses. no owner's manual for a 305 or newer will show that. the 450 shows to use multiweight and oil rated api SE or higher and it has the same spinner oil filter.
You have to remember that the cold war and going to the moon, both in that time frame cause a huge leap forward in technolgy. The need of oils to perform in the the artic to stop the ruskies from comming and fluids that would work in the cold of space caused a huge change in the world right about then. new additives and formulas were being tested and put into service almost everyday. Kinda like one day you have a kerosine latern and the next day you have electric lights. One day they did labotamies and used camphers that caused cancer for cuts. The honda used crude germanium diodes. its was just a few years later that the later model 450 used silicon and solid state zenor diode voltatge regulator.. all in a couple of years time.
GE delveloped the top secret 50 amp submarine diode the allowed submarines to charge their batteries faster and stay under longer.. wow, I remember they were first sold for around $2000 if you could find em. wow, what a battery charger one could build out of a pair of those.

[jensen]

Hi Sotxbill,

The pro's of (modern) synthetic multi grade oils are (I guess) clear to everyone who's interested in life expectancy of there beloved piece of mechanics.

But I think that there are two main reasons why people hesitate to use modern oils

1. Viscosity.

multi grade or not, 30W isn't 5W or 10W. As stated in modern manuals it's important (with modern engines) to stick to the manufacturers advice , as I explained, it has to build up pressure in a therefore designed system to lubricate the non roller bearings.

2. Detergent or non-detergent.

Everyone wants a clean engine, so everyone should use a detergent oil, at least , that seems logic to me. Why would someone use a not cleaning (non detergent) oil ? The only reason I could think of is that the oil filter wasn't working optimal, it's designed in a time when there weren't detergent oils.

There are no other reasons (I can think of) why someone should hesitate not using modern oils in a CB72/77 or a C72/77.

Leaking packings, engine noise and many other reasons are fairy-tales or worn engine reasons.

I didn't care about the viscosity difference between a 5W or a 30W, multigrade / monograde. There are no non-roller bearings, and the oil pump is working fine when the oil pump is within specifications (I wanted to be sure so I tested it). There are not many (mechanical) changes between the oil pump of a 305 and a oil pump used in modern engines (gear pump, trochoide pumps).

But I did care about the way the oil is filtered, because in today's engines (automotive industry) you won't find this filter principle any more. Why not ? Is it only for economical reasons ? Is it because of maintenance reasons ? Or is it because it's not optimal from a technical perspective?

Maybe it was a little bit of the reasons mentioned above, but I wanted to be sure, as no one could tell me why precisely. However, in the non- automotive industry the spinning filter method is used in many forms, but mostly applied with a fixed rpm. Why ?

I tried to explain the reasons in this thread and I used physics for that, and in my opinion it's the only way to understand what's happening, because the spinning oil filter works because it's acting by physical lows.

The differences in force applied to the particles in the oil within the rpm range between tick-over (1000 rpm) and the red line (10.000 rpm) is the square of 10, so 100 times bigger. That would not matter if the nominal force applied to the particle at tick-over would be enough to keep it in the filter, but the filter isn't running fast enough to accomplish that in combination with the detergent power of the oil.

My conclusion is that it works fine within a certain rpm range. It's not working optimal for low rpm's, but does it harm the engine when sticking to the periodical oil changes ? NO, at least not worse then non detergent oils.

Due to filtering characteristics of the fine mazed oil filters (not depending of the rpm of the engine) these are working better for the whole rpm region, and makes it unnecessary to change the oil often.

Jensen

[sotxbill]

Hi Sotxbill,

The pro's of (modern) synthetic multi grade oils are (I guess) clear to everyone who's interested in life expectancy of there beloved piece of mechanics.

But I think that there are two main reasons why people hesitate to use modern oils

1. Viscosity.

multi grade or not, 30W isn't 5W or 10W. As stated in modern manuals it's important (with modern engines) to stick to the manufacturers advice , as I explained, it has to build up pressure in a therefore designed system to lubricate the non roller bearings.

2. Detergent or non-detergent.

Everyone wants a clean engine, so everyone should use a detergent oil, at least , that seems logic to me. Why would someone use a not cleaning (non detergent) oil ? The only reason I could think of is that the oil filter wasn't working optimal, it's designed in a time when there weren't detergent oils.

There are no other reasons (I can think of) why someone should hesitate not using modern oils in a CB72/77 or a C72/77.

Leaking packings, engine noise and many other reasons are fairy-tales or worn engine reasons.

I didn't care about the viscosity difference between a 5W or a 30W, multigrade / monograde. There are no non-roller bearings, and the oil pump is working fine when the oil pump is within specifications (I wanted to be sure so I tested it). There are not many (mechanical) changes between the oil pump of a 305 and a oil pump used in modern engines (gear pump, trochoide pumps).

But I did care about the way the oil is filtered, because in today's engines (automotive industry) you won't find this filter principle any more. Why not ? Is it only for economical reasons ? Is it because of maintenance reasons ? Or is it because it's not optimal from a technical perspective?

Maybe it was a little bit of the reasons mentioned above, but I wanted to be sure, as no one could tell me why precisely. However, in the non- automotive industry the spinning filter method is used in many forms, but mostly applied with a fixed rpm. Why ?

I tried to explain the reasons in this thread and I used physics for that, and in my opinion it's the only way to understand what's happening, because the spinning oil filter works because it's acting by physical lows.

The differences in force applied to the particles in the oil within the rpm range between tick-over (1000 rpm) and the red line (10.000 rpm) is the square of 10, so 100 times bigger. That would not matter if the nominal force applied to the particle at tick-over would be enough to keep it in the filter, but the filter isn't running fast enough to accomplish that in combination with the detergent power of the oil.

My conclusion is that it works fine within a certain rpm range. It's not working optimal for low rpm's, but does it harm the engine when sticking to the periodical oil changes ? NO, at least not worse then non detergent oils.

Due to filtering characteristics of the fine mazed oil filters (not depending of the rpm of the engine) these are working better for the whole rpm region, and makes it unnecessary to change the oil often.

Jensen

The ONLY valid reason for not using modern oils is... If you still pour your own babbet bearings. These old style soft poured bearings cannot tolerate detergent oils as the oil will clean the babbet right off the main blocks.

Also if you leak or burn so much oil that you have to fill the oil every day.. then you will want to run anything you can get cheap and thick.. but your engine is already pretty much toast.

As to viscosity.. 30wt oil is test for viscosity at 100C or 210F. the multiweights oils are tested for the "w" ratings that vari from about 0C or 32F degrees down to -30C or -22f.

So a 10w30 oils will act exactly like a 30 wt oil at 210 degrees and like a 10w oil at minus 4/20degrees..

so the only arguments in the industry is do you need to compensate for worn engines? Where you might need a thicker oil on start up and a thicker oil at running temps due to increase tolerences.


And for overhead cams and turbos, a lower "w" number is better for getting a thin oil up to the top of the engine quicker so a streight weight oil would never be specified. (per api and others)

So to sum up... We have overhead cams. We do not have poured babbet bearings. We have high performance engines that are very hard on oils. As to the run thin oil in winter and thicker oil in summer recommendation, the multi-weight charactoristics negate that pretty much as well.

So the only valid argument is .... do I run 15w-40? 10w30? 5w30or what.


answers are..hd oils have more anti wear additives so a ch rated oil was the peak of anti wear oils you could buy. The ch oils were for heavy duty diesels that run 10,000 miles between changes so the oils are heavily fortified and about the best ever made. CH oils were made before tier 2 and tier 3 emissions so the oils were full of every chemical know that stopped wear and keep the oil in perfect condition and faught acid build ups. However that being said..now due to catalytic converters and diesel particulate filters being added to diesels the newer ci and even worse cj oils are starting to get closer to thier gasolene rated oils that have had to have less additives to keep the converters from fouling out. Remember the zdp additives that stop high wear are attractted to very hot surfaces and bond to them.. so these additives will litterly go the the hot catylitic converters and kling to them and render them useless.. So run a ch oil if you can find it. run a 5w-40 or 15w-40 in hd oil a 5w-30 in an SE or higher rated oil will be your real choices.

As we do not have converters and emissions to worry about, the hd oils are still probably the best/cheapest for our bikes. Remember also that there are jasso rated oils for motorcycles only that can still be manufactored with all the good additives in them as well, so these expensive oils will be a bit better that hd oils for compression or spark engines and the BEST you can buy.(equal to the old ch oils). Just be sure to buy the motorcycle oil for a wet clutch. Also amsoil may still have some mixtures out there that are non api as they are full on the good stuff, although I dont care for amsoil's marketing and most of its dealers.


AS to oil change intervals, the 305 runs a small sump so the oil contamination ratio is higher than an engine with larger sump. And the smaller sump means the oil is run hotter as well. So why the newer oils will give more protection, less wear, keeping the oil changed on time is still a good practice. extending oil changes will cause viscosity increases, and depletion of the additives and more wear and soot particles in the oil. Acid levels due to moisture and combustions by products will increase as well.

[jensen]

Hi Sotxbill,

From my point of view we have the same opinion, I couldn't have said it better in your mother language. I started with the sentence "But I think that there are two main reasons why people hesitate to use modern oils".

I was only concerned about the oil filter and detergent oils, and I have found the answers on that matter for myself and shared it with others,

Jensen

[G-Man]

Jensen and Sotxbill

Great stuff. I am enjoying this discourse. When my CL77 and 72 get on the road next year I have a much better idea of how to preserve my investment.

One comment though. In the 'old days' many people opined that multigrade oils did not preserve their spec in motorcycle engines with roller bearings etc because of deterioration of that long chain molecule 'trickery'. Is their any sound opinion on the relative life of multigrade vs monograde oil? i.e their ability to stay within spec over time?

Not trying to spark off more doubt, just curious.

Regards

G

[Vince Lupo]

I second the accolades -- Jensen and Bill, you guys are a hugely valuable asset to this Forum.

I, for one, am very appreciative.

[jensen]

For all who're reading this thread

Thanks for reading it and/or replying to it. That means that you spend time to do so, and that's the only feedback needed for me. Again, I don't want to tell someone else what oil to use, for a lot of people oil is a belief, and I'm not a preacher. I only can give information based on experience and a few considerations backed -up with physics.

Jensen