Had some Timken fun today!

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I got my hands on a Timken bearing machine today and had some great fun with it.

"Fun" is the operative word here, this is by no means scientific, so I am NOT professing that I know which oil out of the ones I played with is the best in real life performance - I do know that a car engine and a Timken bearing machine have nothing in common.

The oils I "tested" are just what I had on hand - what is in my vehicles right now (PU 5W20 & MaxLife 5W30) and some samples I had kicking around from the past: Castrol HM 5W30, West Marine 30W marine oil and some Schaeffer 15W40 from a heavy duty mechanic friend.

I have no idea how the difference in viscosities between the different samples plays a role, or not - but again, this is what I had in front of me.

My approach was basically:

Add sufficient amount of oil.
Rest the bearing on the race with no weight on it for 10 seconds.
Slowly applying pressure until the oil had coated sufficiently for me to apply enough pressure to lift the front end of the machine with the handle (without the machine jamming).
Stop and examine the size of the scar in the bearing

Between each test I cleaned the machine with a degreaser and sanded the race thoroughly with sand paper.

The difference was quite startling to me.

Listed with the "winner" at the top and down:

1. Schaeffer 7000
2. West Marine (dino)
3. Pennzoil Ultra
4. Valvoline MaxLife
5 Castol GTX HM

The Castrol was significantly worse than any of the others, and left a big scar.

PU and MaxLife were in a virtual draw, scar in the bearing significant.

West Marine oil coated much faster and left a scar only about half the size of PU an MaxLife

Schaeffer basically coated after the initial 10 second and left a scar so small, it was hardly visible!

I am still rather new around here, but from the UOA's I have read so far, the difference in oil performance in real life engine use does not seem to be nearly as great as the Timken machine seems to indicate, so is there any valuable indication to be found by such "tests"??

What say you oil experts??

Regardless, it is a lot of fun, and I am going to see what other oils I can sample while I still have the machine in my possession over the weekend.
 
try royal purple, castrol edge, motorcraft hdeo, mobil delvac hdeo, and supertech synthetic. if u r takeing requests
 
I have heard others say that bleach or dish soap performs well with the test. The Timken machine was designed to test the EP characteristics of grease. Most people think it's not relevant for an oil test.
 
Originally Posted By: pidster
How about trying some greases? Like hate2work said that's really what it's for how bout putting it to it's intended use?


Sure, I don't use much grease myself, only have one tube - I believe Pennzoil marine grease, that I use on my boat outboard and trailer. Will see what my mechanic friend has laying around and give it a shot if time permits.
 
Originally Posted By: nazareth
try royal purple, castrol edge, motorcraft hdeo, mobil delvac hdeo, and supertech synthetic. if u r takeing requests


I will see what I can find - my buddy is a heavy duty mechanic, so he might have some hdeo stuff.
 
Man I`d LOVE to have one of those machines! It`d be a blast to play around with.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
Man I`d LOVE to have one of those machines! It`d be a blast to play around with.


It really is a lot of fun - pretty addictive!
grin.gif


I am looking for other oil samples to play with, but so far I can't believe how badly the Schaeffer oil beat all the others I tested.
crazy2.gif


I currently run PU in my Accord, and I must admit I was disappointed with it, given the cost of the oil, and that it is a brand new product.

I can't help but think that although there is definitely way more to oil, film strength must be relatively important?
 
I`d test a couple of dinos like Pennzoil and Valvoline,then some synths like M1 and RP. Then,I`d test the dinos against the synths. Yep,I`d be addicted too! :^)
 
Originally Posted By: sr17
I am looking for other oil samples to play with, but so far I can't believe how badly the Schaeffer oil beat all the others I tested.


Schaeffers reps used to go to the trade shows and use this machine to "prove" their oil was superior. Check out youtube, there are several diff videos using a similar machine promoting an array of lubricants. Here'e one from Amsoil.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejExtOcV5aI
 
In what order were they tested? Did you by chance see each oil improving from the last? I have come to hear anti wear additives build up on the thing loading the bearing, therfore each oil will be better than the one previously tested.
 
"Between each test I cleaned the machine with a degreaser and sanded the race thoroughly with sand paper."......
this lets the "new" oil start anew.
 
The Schaeffers and the marine oil winning wasn't a fluke - they were the thickest - viscosity carried them above the others.

Not dissing your test, very cool and would like to see more - just adding to the discussion.
 
Why not try the test with hot oil?
Pour a small sample of each oil in a small dish or cup and place in the kitchen oven set at 100C or so. A 15 minute soak should be long enough and leave the samples in the oven until ready to test. Repeat for an accuracy test.
(Suggest you do this when the wife is out shopping or some such thing.)
 
To answer a few of the questions:

I did my best to degrease and roughen the surface of the race after each test, trying to level the playing field.

Hot oil in the oven - not sure my family will appreciate that additional flavoring imparted on the Christmas turkey - may make the test more realistic, but I am going to pass on that one
grin.gif


Addyguy, it would seem logical to me that a thicker oil should produce a better result, but yesterday I had the chance to try Rotella 15W40 dino and it definitely came in at the bottom end of all oils I have tried so far.

I also tested Lucas 20W50 Racing Oil and it too was very disappointing, which means a significant scar. Got a very similar result with Castrol Syntec 5W20.

I still have no idea how this relates to real life, but in this particular test, chaeffer is so far in a league of its own.

We went on to play with a whole bunch of gear oils. I will post a bit more about my experiences with those later.
 
I have fun with Timkin bearings on occasion at my shop...120psi of compressed air really lights em up!
Ear and eye/face protection of course.
***Don't try it at home***
 
So my mechanic buddy and I went on to play with a bunch of different gear oil, to see how they do on the bearing machine.

There were definitely differences, but the results varied a lot less than with motor oils.

Oils we tested, ranked in order of performance:

Red Line 75W90 High Performance
Schaeffer 293 Supreme 75W90
Pennzoil Synthetic 75W90
Honda Outboard Gear Oil 90W
Supertech 80W90 (dino)
Evinrude HPF XR
Mercury High Performance Gear Lube

Red Line and Schaeffer were a virtual draw - both coated almost instantly and left a minimal scar. Penzoil left a slightly bigger scar, but still pretty close to RL and Schaeffer.

Honda and Supertech were very similar - significantly more wear on the bearing than the synthetic oils above.

Mercury and Evinrude are both synthethic, they seem to be significantly thinner, although I could not find any marking of viscosity on the bottles. Whether it is the viscosity that makes the difference, I don't know, but they again showed a lot more wear than the dino gear oils above.
 
I've always wondered how castor oil would go on the timken machine.A high performance engine and gear oil....
 
I had a final installment of timken fun.

The Schaeffer did so well that I wanted to try it one more time. This time I made sure to roughen the race extra well, and start with the Schaeffer, just to make sure.

It still outperforms everything else that I have tried in this test.

I then tried PU 10W30. Previously I had tried PU 5W20, which is what is in my Accord right now. Wanted to see if viscosity makes a difference, and it seems to perform marginally better.

I then tried Mobil Clean 5000 10W30, and it turned out to be the poorest performer of them all. Actually it was the only oil of all tested, that no matter what I did, or how long I tried, it would not coat.

Finally, to underline the highly scientific nature of this test, I tested Palmolive orange dish washing detergent
grin.gif
. It performed poorly, but in the end it coated and thus "beat" MC 5000
crazy.gif


Apart from MC 5000, I think that the biggest surprise to me was the poor performance of Lucas 20W50 Racing Oil, which also seems to go against the idea that viscosity is the difference maker.
 
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