Originally Posted By: dnewton3
I'm a bit unclear on the mileage; are you saying you put 150 miles on it in addition to the estimate of 1 hour idle per month, or that is your total including the idle time? Regardless, there is very little accumulation of time on this oil.
The wear cannot really be looked at from an accumulated point of view, because the total is so low that the initialization of the oil is still predominant. Many years ago, Ford and Connoco did an SAE study which showed that wear actually spikes a bit right after an oil change; fresh add pack reactions and such. What I'm saying is that we cannot really tell how much of this is wear due to mechanical running, and how much is wear from chemical reactions because the exposure is so great relative to the total time. In effect, it's inconclusive.
With TBN that high, we can say you certainly are not going to have to worry about acid build up in the near future. Is this (presumably) CI-4+ stock?
That being said, what we can glean from this is that running the rig helps keep the moisture out; the engine doesn't have any major contaminant intrusion, and that long periods of sitting dormant don't hurt the lube. Helps those of us (including myself) who do let oil sit in the crankcase for 2-3 years breath a little easier.
For your purposes, I'd say the ST is doing quite well, and there is no reason to do anyting different, nor swap brands. You're getting the most out of your situtation that you can, and maximizinig your ROI.
My main concern is coolant in the oil. Diesels had problems with Liner Cavatation back when this truck was built. Plus there are Rubber O-Rings that seal the press in liners to the block.
It's been so long I have forgotten exactly how many miles/hrs are on this oil. I have driven the truck to the truck stop, a few car shows etc but not much lately.
I have tried and tried but I can't find any body with any maintenance history on the truck. From the amount of grease that was on the engine I don't think that the heads have ever been off.
The engine, axles, frame, hood and 1 fender are original. The cab and LF fender have been replaced. This leaves me to believe that it has fairly low milage for it's age.
When it was built the speed limit for trucks in Ca was 45 mph. The truck would do about 50 mph. It was originally mostly driven in the city so this was ok.
Owner #2 used it to haul Borax from the desert to Long Beach, Ca. The story is that he made 1 trip @ 50 mph and replaced the transmissions to get more road speed. He added an overdrive trans to replace the direct drive trans it had and also changed the Auxillary trans to one with a PTO cover to run a PTO and with a faster Overdrive.
The few bits of info I have gatererd were from old timers that said this truck was the fastest truck on the route after this and it had a reputation for "Blowing ones doors off".
It got layed on it's side which damaged the cab and LF fender sometime in the late 70's. So it got parked.
Owner #3 rode in it as a kid in the early 70's. He found it in the back of a lot in Los Angelas, bought it and replaced the Cab and fender but didn't do anything else to it.
I bought it in 05.
The UOA is my way of watching for coolant getting in the oil. So far it's ok. This also kills the "Or 3 months" thing with oil changes. Maybe we should only go with miles/hrs and not time?
I used to change the oil every Easter. Looks like that was a waste and since it holds 12 gallons of oil very expensive too.
Access to the oil filter (Wix 51900) is a major job. I'm assuming that the filter did not get changed as often as it should have. I'm considering replacing that filter due to it's age.
Not too worried about the Luberfiner 750 since that is just a Bypass filter.