40k mile OCI pics

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As promised a few times, I finally removed my oil pan to take pictures of what it looks like inside after a 40k mi/6.5 year OCI with Esso XD-3 0W-30 Full Synthetic.

Details:

GM LH0 Engine (3.1L V6) manufactured 1992
Received diet of either dealer oil or Wal-Mart Pennzoil every 3k from 1992-2003 (100k km's)
January 2004, installed XD-3 0W-30 (100k)
April 2008 Coolant Leak from defective LIM gasket (156k km), filled with cheap XD-3 15W-40 as flush oil
September 2008 re-filled with XD-3 0W-30 at 162k km's
May, 2015 227k km's

So 227 - 162k = 65,000km ~= 40k miles

This is what it looked like with the oil pan off after 40k miles on the same oil!!

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These pictures were taken prior to doing any wiping. I feel so confident about the 40k mile oil change that I actually saved this 40k mile oil that I drained and will be adding it back in when I reassemble everything.

Any questions? Feel free to ask. But let this be a lesson that there's nothing wrong with 40k mile oil changes in engines for which it is appropriate. The "official" oil change spec on this engine, BTW, was 7500 miles.
 
Originally Posted By: pitzel
But let this be a lesson that there's nothing wrong with 40k mile oil changes in engines for which it is appropriate.


How much make up oil? If it burned a quart every 2K miles than you added 20 quarts of oil which replenished the add pack.

If I owned a $500 car I wouldn't mind doing 40K mile oil changes. Since I don't...
 
I'd say 1L every 10k roughly. I bought a box of 16L XD-3 0W-30 in 2004, did 2 oil changes (~4L each), so 8L of make-up oil for the 2 ~40k intervals.

Nearly all of the loss was due to leakage, not due to consumption. As my driveway can attest. Oh, I changed filters along the way every 15k roughly, so there was some make-up oil involved there as well.
 
Thanks for sharing, but I'm really scratching my head at saving the old oil and the plan to refill it. Why not add some fresh oil and go another 40k?
 
Originally Posted By: bvance554
Thanks for sharing, but I'm really scratching my head at saving the old oil and the plan to refill it. Why not add some fresh oil and go another 40k?


Will probably have to add a quart to make up what I couldn't recover. But why waste otherwise good oil?
smile.gif
 
The oil residue looks terrible. The proof is in the pudding, so to speak, but this is only one bowl of pudding. The more bowls of similar pudding, the higher the chance that one will be putrid.

My point? You're not analyzing the oil, and while this may work well for you, it may increase the risk for other who try something similar to the point that a spun bearing or increased wear puts the engine out of commission well before its time.

141k miles isn't much, so please let us know whether your engine breaks down due to an oil-related failure before it his 200k miles.
 
Originally Posted By: gathermewool
The oil residue looks terrible. The proof is in the pudding, so to speak, but this is only one bowl of pudding. The more bowls of similar pudding, the higher the chance that one will be putrid.


It wiped away easily. Of course its dark oil, but I guess the point was, it wasn't a bunch of sludge like some would have you believe would be the automatic result of such an interval.

Quote:

My point? You're not analyzing the oil, and while this may work well for you, it may increase the risk for other who try something similar to the point that a spun bearing or increased wear puts the engine out of commission well before its time.


Of course. There are some engines which push oil to its limits and for which perhaps even the manual suggestions might be a tad aggressive.

Quote:

141k miles isn't much, so please let us know whether your engine breaks down due to an oil-related failure before it his 200k miles.


I will, although it likely will be junked for other reasons prior to that. But at least there will be a bunch of $$$ saved in my pocket from not doing a bunch of (probably) unnecessary oil changes.
 
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While it is cool to see, I just can't see not changing it every 10k or so...

What kind of car does that 3.1 belong? Wanted to say cavalier or Lumina....
 
Originally Posted By: daves87rs
While it is cool to see, I just can't see not changing it every 10k or so...

What kind of car does that 3.1 belong? Wanted to say cavalier or Lumina....


Yeah, a Cutlass Supreme, attached to a 4T60. But same motor went into certain Cavaliers, Luminas, Grand Prix's, Buick Regals, Berettas, and even low-end Camaros and S-10s I believe.
 
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Originally Posted By: oilpsi2high
That is not a very healthy looking motor.


What in the pictures makes you think its not a 'healthy looking motor'? I took the pictures literally before I wiped anything away (and when I wiped, it returned to looking like brand new metal). The pick-up screen is practically spotless. Unlike some of the 'bad' examples we've seen on BiTOG where things are [censored] near clogged with sludge (usually in cars where oil quantity hasn't been appropriately maintained!).
 
If you dropped a couple of bearing caps you would have a chance to see if the crank is okay. It's not the "look" of the oil but the condition of the lubricated parts that should determine if you're engine is doing "okay".
 
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Do you have a picture of the bottom of the pan. That is where the sludge accumulates.


Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a shot of that before I started wiping, but it was spotless save for a little puddle of residual oil that I wiped/drained away. There was no sludge on the pan's baffles either. No sludge anywhere in fact, which actually surprised me since the LIM had failed and I had thought that there would be some old residual sludge down below from the coolant/oil emulsion that I wiped out of the upper engine when I had the LIM off.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: pitzel
Originally Posted By: oilpsi2high
That is not a very healthy looking motor.


What in the pictures makes you think its not a 'healthy looking motor'? I took the pictures literally before I wiped anything away (and when I wiped, it returned to looking like brand new metal). The pick-up screen is practically spotless. Unlike some of the 'bad' examples we've seen on BiTOG where things are [censored] near clogged with sludge (usually in cars where oil quantity hasn't been appropriately maintained!).


Lots of caked on varnish.
 
Originally Posted By: pitzel
Originally Posted By: bvance554
Thanks for sharing, but I'm really scratching my head at saving the old oil and the plan to refill it. Why not add some fresh oil and go another 40k?


Will probably have to add a quart to make up what I couldn't recover. But why waste otherwise good oil?
smile.gif



Amazing! this is why I visit BITOG
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Good candidate for a UOA?
What's the sump capacity? If you added 4L of make-up oil that may be pretty close to a change. But 6.5 years is a long time.
Let the haters hate. Thanks for the pics!
 
Originally Posted By: slowdime
Good candidate for a UOA?
What's the sump capacity? If you added 4L of make-up oil that may be pretty close to a change. But 6.5 years is a long time.
Let the haters hate. Thanks for the pics!


I would suggest a UOA. It would be interesting to see how it fared!

Do you do lots of short runs, or a lot of highway runs?
If you're on the highway for long periods, and very few cold starts, a OCI of this long wouldn't be entirely inappropriate, provided the oil is holding up adequately.
 
Originally Posted By: oilpsi2high
Originally Posted By: pitzel
Originally Posted By: oilpsi2high
That is not a very healthy looking motor.


What in the pictures makes you think its not a 'healthy looking motor'? I took the pictures literally before I wiped anything away (and when I wiped, it returned to looking like brand new metal). The pick-up screen is practically spotless. Unlike some of the 'bad' examples we've seen on BiTOG where things are [censored] near clogged with sludge (usually in cars where oil quantity hasn't been appropriately maintained!).


Lots of caked on varnish.

Looks fine
Varnish doesn't do much harm if any at all, I've seen car engines with 700,000km+ on them doing 15-20k OCIs on bulk dino and varnish didn't stop them from getting to that mileage!
 
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