Originally Posted By: Bryanccfshr
TO the OP, I find it interesting that they suggest you go to a conventional oil and they would expect the wear to go down if you do.
What in the world would cause high iron numbers but iron in the oil? It's not apparent in any M1 VOA's so it must be coming from inside the engine somewhere.
A UOA typically only detects particles smaller than 10 microns.
Redline had a great document about chemical bonding causing higher iron "readings" in UOA's, which had nothing to do with wear.
SO, if you have larger chunks of iron surfing through your oil they are either going to:
A. Get picked up by the oil filter
and/or
B. Not get picked-up by the UOA because they are larger than the range sampled.
You could have a FANTASTIC UOA, and an oil filter full of metal particles.
This is why the idea of TEAR DOWN TESTING is SO IMPORTANT and why UOA's SHOULD NOT BE USED as an indication as to how an engine is "wearing".
But please, feel free to draw all sorts of wild conclusions based on vague single-pass UOA data and disregard Doug's posts on the topic, since he's only been at it for 40 years or so.