High soot levels in 12.7l detroit 60 series

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winston-salem,nc
I have been having some trouble with sludge in my diesel fleet and the oil manufacturer being Citgo says all of my trucks have a high soot level causing the oil sludge . I have lost 2 engines already out of 30 plus on the road. The oil they were selling me in bulk was bad to foam and even looked milky or cloudy. I have since switched to Mobile delvac 1300 plus and my engines are cleaning up nicely and none of them are EGR engines. I dont feel that with the fleet of trucks averaging at most a gallon of oil per week that the soot is the problem like they say. I feel that it something they Citgo and there engineers are not telling me. does anyone have any ideas on this.
 
what are the soot levels? Did you have the oil analyzed? I wouldn't use citgo oil use something like chevron or rotella.
Citgo isn't even an american company.
 
requesting move to either HDEO-diesel trucks or UOA forum-I would have a VOA/Virgin Oil Analysis done on the new/unused oil, and have UOAs done on the engines that are having trouble. There are sponsors on this site such as Blackstone that can help you. I've never personally seen Citgo diesel motor oil around these parts, myself.
 
Thats what the company had a contract with them for years. The soot level is >11 and off their charts. We have switched to Mobile delvac 1300 plus oil and we tried rotella and it was only able to run 10000 miles safely in our road trucks.
 
We have had oil analysis done on the oil new and with 8000 miles on it new it meets cj4 specs at 8 miles they cant even tell anything other than soot is high and cant get any readings at 100 degrees celsius.
 
Does it smoke a lot out the stacks? Most trucks I see these days have hardly any smoke comming out at all. I assume your air filter is ok.
 
Hi,
my error - not 35% - the condemation figure is 3.5% when using lubricants CH-4 and later

In my DDEC 2, 3 and 4 engines I regularly got to 40kkms (25k miles) when using a mineral oil before soot reache 3% or Fe was at its condemnation level of 150ppm
 
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There is no way that a non-EGR diesel should be creating condemnation-levels of soot in 8000 miles. Either something is seriously wrong with the fuel/air systems on the trucks, or the oil is the wrong product and/or compromised. If the engines are "cleaning up" on Delvac, it does seem that the oil was the problem. Get some UOA's on the Delvac, preferably from a reputable oil testing company.
 
Hi,
Rob_Roy - That is my conclusion too. The DDEC variants do have diffent performance levels regarding combustion performance. IME DDEC 2 was the best performer. Several years ago I inspected some sooted Series 60 engine as a Consultant to their Client. The high soot levels had produced very severe sludging requiring a partial teardown to cleanup

The reason was the Client's use of a non-compliant lubricant

Delvac 1300 is an excellent product with an exceptional cleanliness performance
 
I have had similar problems with those series 60's, we switched over to D-A Excelon EBS M which is up to Detroit Diesel PowerGuard 93K214 specs. That took care of the soot problems along with giving us 15,000 mile OCI's. This is on a fleet of 20 Michigan Gravel trains. It worked for us maybe it will help you. After a couple oil changes out soot levels were at 0.4%
 
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All of the trucks in my fleet are 2000 to 2005 models and non-egr and it is very unlikely that they all can fuel/air systems giving the same problem at the same time. The trucks are all international also. They were all wal-mart trucks that we purchase as they come off lease and they have been well serviced using mobile delvac 1300 oil.
 
Hi,
fordrenegade - This Thread should be in the Trucker's Form!

As I asked earlier, what DDEC series are these engines equipped with?

Were they on Delvac 1300 before you took them over? Did the high soot levels suddenly occur? If so when? What fuel are you using, etc etc?

As I said before, this would be best dealt with on the Trucker's Forum
 
The trucks all have a new air filter installed around 30000 miles and just a few smoke but only if in hard pulling situations which would be normal. DDEC does not show on the engine tags on these trucks unless it is hidden.
 
Hi,
fordrenegarde - The DDEC version will be displayed on the ECM - or it can be obtained from DD against the engine No. By your description it will likely be post DDEC 4

On any account a quick couple-up to DD's ECM analyser will/should disclose any/most non lubricant problems
 
Even with our EGR and DPF equipped 60 series and ISX's we run 32000 miles drains with Delo 400. EGR equipped Macks run 27000 miles. We have engines with well over 1 million miles on them and have not been touched internally. It does a great job keeping the soot in suspension.
 
Hi,
fordrenegade - I would certainly have a diagnostic check via the ECM. DDEC 4 was really the first of the emmission "strangulated" Series 60s (at least in OZ) but their are a variety of outputs available too. These need to be investigated,I would be checking the ratings and etc.

Is the DDEC 3 better or worse for soot than the DDEC 4?

These engine had a wastegate turbo too IIRC and are you sure their is no EGR device?

DDEC enables many variations in operation - some can be self programmed - some must be Dealer programmed. I suspect you will find the problem in the ECM area
 
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The 3 is better but not by very much and it runs well just as the rest of the fleet. I think it was just a poor quality Citgo oil product that has been causing the problems. So far Mobile and its reps and engineers have been a great help. None of the trucks have Egr devices on them. The only 3 trucks that do are cummings motors which do have EGR, but so far they have not had any problems, but are the last trucks put into the fleet in the last 4-5 months.
 
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