Detergents! Do they clean?

[StevieC]

Originally Posted by jongies3
Originally Posted by StevieC
I would say detergents clean. Here is what my Santa Fe looked like at 300K miles when the camshaft snapped. It was run its whole life on quality synthetics.

Still looks new inside! Too bad it died on ya.


Yeah I was hoping to make it a Million Kilometer engine but the cam had to go and bugger things up. Oh well.

 

[Bailes1992]

Do you know why the cam snapped Stevie?

 

[SonofJoe]

Originally Posted by BigShug681
Originally Posted by SonofJoe
Originally Posted by BigShug681
Originally Posted by SonofJoe
Always good to get both sides of the story...

https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/foru...ergents-magnesium-vs-calcium#Post4879933

I find it interesting that you say they don't clean, would you care to explain how engine oil gets dirty if it's not actively cleaning? I know there are many factors to the dirtying of oil but I also believe cleansing is one of them


If you're asking, why do engine oils go from a nice, clear straw colour to an opaque black, that's easy. Take an oil. Put it in a glass cylinder. Put it in an oven & heat it up & bubble air through it for a few days. Before you know it, the oil will be black. What you're witnessing is the base oil oxidising. Oxygen is finding weak points in the base oil chemical structure (usually benzylic hydrogen sites), opening them up and initiating a chain reaction which leads to the formation of complex organic acids.

You should note from this that you DON'T need oil to be actually inside a combustion engine & exposed to blow-by gas & all its associated nasties to turn black. Air, heat & time are all you need. However if you do put oil in an engine & run it, the rate at which the oil oxidises increases markedly. This is because things like the presence of wear metals, NOx & partially burnt fuel all act as oxidation catalysts.

You can slow down the rate of oxidation by a variety of means. ZDDP (Zinc) is an excellent antioxidant as are Diphenylamines, Phenolics, etc. Overbased Metallic Detergents are sort of a poor man's antioxidant. Their job is to neutralise acids as they're formed and stop them further catalysing oxidation. The active ingredient in something like 300 TBN Calcium Sulphonate is not the Calcium Alkyl Benzene Sulphonate 'detergent' but the alkaline Calcium Carbonate & Calcium Hydroxide that the detergent molecules maintain in colloidal suspension.

Oh, and one shouldn't forget the other thing that detergent do is preventing rust inside your engine.

Hope that helps...

Very interesting then how do companies get away with saying said oil cleans better than said oil?


I talked about 'clean-up' claims (and why you should be wary of them) in a recent thread. Here you go...

https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/4879933/4

 

[StevieC]

Originally Posted by Bailes1992
Do you know why the cam snapped Stevie?


Looks like a defect from when the metal was cast because it broke apart like there were impurities in the metal or something in that one spot. It wasn't a clean line type break.

 

[s2krunner]

Originally Posted by StevieC
I would say detergents clean. Here is what my Santa Fe looked like at 300K miles when the camshaft snapped. It was run its whole life on quality synthetics.

...® thats super clean. My 100k Ranger doesnt even look that clean. Which oil have you been using?

 

[ChrisD46]

Originally Posted by s2krunner
Originally Posted by StevieC
I would say detergents clean. Here is what my Santa Fe looked like at 300K miles when the camshaft snapped. It was run its whole life on quality synthetics.

...® thats super clean. My 100k Ranger doesnt even look that clean. Which oil have you been using?

*As well as OCI - That engine looks like it was run on PU at 3,0000 mile OCI's !

 

[StevieC]

Amsoil 0w30 that's in my signature is what was used most of its life. Prior was M1 and Renewable Lube. The best I could do was 12,000km (7500 miles) in this engine because it was notorious for killing the TBN and raising the TAN in no time. The factory OCI was 6K KM (3500 Miles). I ran it at 10,000km (6K miles) to be safe. Every othe oil I ran in it was just done in 3K miles (5,000km). It's what showed me that the Amsoil was better up to the task than any other oil at the time because it gave me the best TBN/TAN results out of everything else I tried.

 

[s2krunner]

Originally Posted by StevieC
Amsoil 0w30 that's in my signature is what was used most of its life. Prior was M1 and Renewable Lube. The best I could do was 12,000km (7500 miles) in this engine because it was notorious for killing the TBN and raising the TAN in no time. The factory OCI was 6K KM (3500 Miles). I ran it at 10,000km (6K miles) to be safe. Every othe oil I ran in it was just done in 3K miles (5,000km). It's what showed me that the Amsoil was better up to the task than any other oil at the time because it gave me the best TBN/TAN results out of everything else I tried.


Nice. Thanks