pre wwII oil and fuel analysis and nostalgia gurus

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Working on a historical fiction novel with heavy emphasis on early internal combustion (gas and diesel) engines. 1915-WWII. Wondering what kind of technologies might have worked for "home grown" oil and fuel testing/analysis.

I.E. - my character has a Hotpoint electric iron and is doing crackle tests for water leaks.

I welcome additional realistic, low tech suggestions. Just after "plausible" for the character who runs a small shop in the northern great plains dealing with winters and the dust bowl. The object is NOT to make him a pioneer in oil analysis, just aware of the need for "something" and low tech experimenting.

Thanks.
 
One old school test is to put a small drop of oil on each individual exhaust header as close to the engine as possible and watch it cook. If one spot does not cook off as quickly as the others than that cylinder is not working or at least working less than the others and you should look there for any problems.
 
Been pondering, but what you need to do is get a copy of "The High Speed Internal Combustion Engine", by Sir Harry Ricardo, and digest it completely.

It's a 1923 through 1931 updated text, and the absolute state of the art when it came to engines in the day. I was able to borrow a 1927 edition and read it through 3 times, it's amazing.

e.g.
they used a "toluene" rating, not an Octane Rating.
"greasy friction", and "oiliness" was a property that lubricants had between dry and hydrodynamic...they used a lot of animal fats in lubes in the day, and these lubes contained esters which did far more in the boundary range than the minerals could.
 
OUTSTANDING! ALL OF THEM! THANK YOU.

I will do some digging on all of these and welcome others.
 
Dug around in my library (actually pile) today and found this series of books.
IMG_20151129_163240.jpg


The series that I've got was given to a guy in 1923 as a gift on his way to Oz.

There's a section on fuels and lubricants....

IMG_20151129_163032.jpg


I loved the opening paragraph...
 
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
blotter test


Until I Googled it, I assumed that paper chromatography with solvent elution has been around since at least the end of the 19th century or earlier, but apparently it was very little known or developed before WW2.

This implies that even the blotter test would be quite innovative in the 20's, and the hero apparently isn't supposed to be a genius.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_analysis

suggests that oil analysis is basically a post-war development (though tribology has a longer history).

This implies you might have to body-swerve historical accuracy and let him get a bit creative/ahead of his time.

IIRC water turbidity in rivers and lakes is measured by the depth at which a standard disk is obscured. If it works for hydrologists, such a method could be perhaps be adapted to measure the "blackness" of oil, without access to a means of actually measuring light, which might have been a challenging DIY project in the 20's.

The measuring range could be extended by diluting the sample with kerosene or virgin oil, and compared to "standard" suspensions of lamp black.

Blackness of oil might not be a very useful parameter, but perhaps your hero could combine it with sedimentation or magnetic separation to get more info.

Couldn't remember the name: Secchi Disk

http://water.epa.gov/type/rsl/monitoring/vms55.cfm
 
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Originally Posted By: OneEyeJack
One old school test is to put a small drop of oil on each individual exhaust header as close to the engine as possible and watch it cook. If one spot does not cook off as quickly as the others than that cylinder is not working or at least working less than the others and you should look there for any problems.


That's an engine test rather than an oil test.
 
OTOH, there have been posts on here showing the effect of "cooking" oil in an oven.

Mostly dissed as irrelevant, but maybe we could cut the 1920's hero some slack, what with the impending Wall Street Crash and all.

Would aged/degraded 1920's oil break down when cooked (say on a white tile) faster than fresh 1920's oil?

Dunno.
 
Think you're supposed to be able to get an idea of oil degradation from the way a droplet spreads on water but can't remember where I read/heard it.

Thought it was here

http://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/1050/onsite-oil-analysis-lab

but that's mostly too high tech.

Your hero could probably do something with viscosity comparison (flow through orifice or fall of ball-bearing through a column) and emulsion formation, though I dunno how relevant the latter is to non-detergent 1920's oils

The thing about quantifying water from hydrogen evolution of calcium hydride might have possibilities. Think calcium carbide (which IIRC reacts similarly with water but releases acetylene) was in use for motorcycle lighting and perhaps welding. Dramatic explosion possibilities.

Found the oil on water thing here

http://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/348/check-car-oil

"Oil Drop Placed on Water Surface
When oil ages and becomes contaminated and oxidized, the oil drop spreads out over the surface of the water (instead of beading up like a new oil)."

Not much else in that article though
 
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http://www.nttworldwide.com/docs/camtel

If I'm reading this right, it seems that

(a) Surface tension effects in '20's oils and modern oils are likely to be very different, and

(b) despite (mostly unsupported/implied) assertions to the contrary above, its doubtful if surface tension is going to be useful in modern motor oils which are pre-loaded with polar surfactant additives.

Might still have been useful in 20's oils, which I'd guess didn't have detergents so the effect of polar compounds produced by oxidation would have been clearer.
 
Modern oils still beads out on top of the water qnd dont make that colored rainbows on top that contaminated oils and grease do. Thats surface tension problem.
 
Originally Posted By: Pontual
Modern oils still beads out on top of the water qnd dont make that colored rainbows on top that contaminated oils and grease do. Thats surface tension problem.


Well, that could be, but the only non-anecdotal, evidence-based source supporting reduced surface tension in modern motor oil I found from a quick Google was a Masters thesis reporting lower surface tension for used Valvoline 10W30.

https://etd.auburn.edu/handle/10415/2174

"Determination Of Lubricant Quality Using Maximum Bubble Pressure Method"

http://www.etc-cte.ec.gc.ca/databases/Oilproperties/pdf/WEB_Lubricating_Oil_(Engine_Gasoline).pdf

reports some values for used engine oil but without any comparison to unused.

Could be that reduction in surface tension of engine oils is so well known that no one has bothered to research or report it, but then you'd think someone would be using it, and according to the Machinery Lubrication articles, they aren't.

Shannow's point about bio-lubricants in old time engine oils suggests they might not always have been entirely free of surface tension reducing polar compounds either.

I'd guess that the use of total-loss oiling systems on early engines (eg Gnome rotary aircraft engine with castor, Morgan 3-wheeler with mineral) incidentally avoided the effect of oil degredation, and, where circulating systems were in use, high rates of oil consumption might still have minimised these effects.

http://www.ancientalley.com/ancient/rhinebck/gnome/gnome.htm#heading 3

http://britishmotoringjournal.com/morgan-3-wheeler-review/

http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/331880/384699.html?1378079600 (discussion of Model-T oil consumption)


This paper

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4362736/

"Aquatic model for engine oil degradation by rhamnolipid producing Nocardiopsis VITSISB" is approaching the topic from another angle, and gives some clues to possible simple techniques.

Ambiguity in the descriptions undermines clarity and credibility a bit, though this might just be a language problem.
 
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Good, As I anecdoctaly said, contaminated oils (used) have less surface tension and disperse loosing body in tiny bubbles of oil over the water surface, as colored lines (raibows) by an optical effect caused for different density and different light reflextions (of each matter). Thats an old as dirt side test from blotter spot.
 
Originally Posted By: Ducked
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
blotter test


Until I Googled it, I assumed that paper chromatography with solvent elution has been around since at least the end of the 19th century or earlier, but apparently it was very little known or developed before WW2.

This implies that even the blotter test would be quite innovative in the 20's, and the hero apparently isn't supposed to be a genius.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_analysis

suggests that oil analysis is basically a post-war development (though tribology has a longer history).

This implies you might have to body-swerve historical accuracy and let him get a bit creative/ahead of his time.

IIRC water turbidity in rivers and lakes is measured by the depth at which a standard disk is obscured. If it works for hydrologists, such a method could be perhaps be adapted to measure the "blackness" of oil, without access to a means of actually measuring light, which might have been a challenging DIY project in the 20's.

The measuring range could be extended by diluting the sample with kerosene or virgin oil, and compared to "standard" suspensions of lamp black.

Blackness of oil might not be a very useful parameter, but perhaps your hero could combine it with sedimentation or magnetic separation to get more info.

Couldn't remember the name: Secchi Disk

http://water.epa.gov/type/rsl/monitoring/vms55.cfm



I think he's referring to the quick and dirty test for fuel dilution in the oil. Put a drop of oil on blotter paper and see if a fuel halo develops around the dark oil spot indicating excessive fuel in the oil.
 
Originally Posted By: ironman_gq
Originally Posted By: Ducked
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
blotter test


Until I Googled it, I assumed that paper chromatography with solvent elution has been around since at least the end of the 19th century or earlier, but apparently it was very little known or developed before WW2.

This implies that even the blotter test would be quite innovative in the 20's, and the hero apparently isn't supposed to be a genius.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_analysis

suggests that oil analysis is basically a post-war development (though tribology has a longer history).

This implies you might have to body-swerve historical accuracy and let him get a bit creative/ahead of his time.

IIRC water turbidity in rivers and lakes is measured by the depth at which a standard disk is obscured. If it works for hydrologists, such a method could be perhaps be adapted to measure the "blackness" of oil, without access to a means of actually measuring light, which might have been a challenging DIY project in the 20's.

The measuring range could be extended by diluting the sample with kerosene or virgin oil, and compared to "standard" suspensions of lamp black.

Blackness of oil might not be a very useful parameter, but perhaps your hero could combine it with sedimentation or magnetic separation to get more info.

Couldn't remember the name: Secchi Disk

http://water.epa.gov/type/rsl/monitoring/vms55.cfm



I think he's referring to the quick and dirty test for fuel dilution in the oil. Put a drop of oil on blotter paper and see if a fuel halo develops around the dark oil spot indicating excessive fuel in the oil.


Sure. But that's still paper chromatography, which apparently didn't exist as a concept before WW2.

It would have been practical for the OP's hero, but he'd have had to originate it, and he apparently isn't supposed to be a pioneer.

I've seen an approximate introduction date for the blotter test given somewhere, probably on the same machinerylubrication.com site Shannon cites above. Can't remember if it was 50's or 60's but certainly postwar. Don't have time to look for it now, but that site doesn't often give source citations anyway.
 
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