Lubrication of an old motor

Well, if you recommend WD-40 as a lubricant you probably need to call your doctor as WD-40 is basically kerosine which is not exactly the correct lubricant for an electric motor.

Bruce-in-Bangkok (Note:remove underscores from address for reply)

If it is a babbit bearing motor with slinger rings, you use something like 20W or 30W oil. Probably the same with oil wick design, although those may need to have the gummed-up oil dissolved so the wicks can oil the bearings. You may just have to replace the wicks with cotton shoelaces.

Jon

Kerosene in the oil to clean an engine is an old trick, but one did it for a few hours at most, and not under load. Maybe this is how WD-40 was really invented, never mind the legend on the website.

Joe Gwinn

The one guy I've ever talked to who did this much, a mechanic who specialized in converting car engines for marine use, told me that 1), it usually doesn't do any good; and 2) it often fries your engine. He did a lot of old Stars and Fords from the early '30s and Packards from the '50s, which were once popular conversions. It was a last-ditch, desperate measure if you were doing a cheap conversion, he said.

I don't know what WD40 says, beyond what's in their MSDS. And that doesn't tell you much.

-- Ed Huntress

Ed, it's always humorous to see the many distorted interpretations of a useful tip.

I've heard that a flush with kero can help remove the remaining dirty oil during an oil change, and seems entirely sensible. After the dirty oil is drained, a quart-or-so of kero is poured in and runs out the drain hole.

How this would get to the point of running an engine, and driving the car for several days is beyond comprehension.

I could possibly see how some folks might add a quart of kero, after removing a quart of dirty oil, and operate the vehicle for a short time, in an attempt to try to remove built-up deposits or gummy residues before an oil change.

The most reasonable one I've heard was to add a quart of Rislone after removing a quart of dirty oil, and operate the vehicle for maybe (as much as) a couple of hundred miles, for additional internal cleaning, prior to an oil change.

I don't do any of the above anymore.. what ever comes out when the plug is removed is replaced with fresh oil, plus enough for the new filter.

WB ......... metalworking projects

Oh, yeah. A lot of them fly around here. Fortunately there also are a lot of knowledgeable people here who usually catch them before they breed.

I think you really have to stir up any of that oil-and-water glop in a poorly cared-for engine. Whether just running kero through it would do anything is problematic.

Well, they used to do it, 'way back, and even into the '50s. But my impression is that it's mostly an old-wive's tale that has ruined a lot of engines.

The detergents in modern oil are so good that, if they won't do it, you're ready for one of those internal pressure/pumping treatments at Jiffy Lube, or even an engine tear-down and cleaning.

Modern engines won't tolerate that kind of playing around, in any case. It was different when castings were thick and soft, and pistons were C.I. rather than aluminum. My dad used to tell me how *his* dad would de-carbon the head on the ol' Model A -- using an O/A torch with the head still on.

-- Ed Huntress

I believe it. I heard the trick from a coworker who was also an experienced shady-tree mechanic from rural PA. It may depend on the engine kind. He didn't report a high failure rate, but he would be one to know just how far he could push it.

When the metal becomes too clean, it will weld nicely.

Hmm. If it didn't usually do any good, why did the mechanic even bother?

It's a saga on their website (?) that says that what became WD-40 was the 40th formula they tried. One wonders what took so long.

Joe Gwinn

Hhmmmnnn ! Dirty oil and crap in the engine. Makes me wonder. I used to know a guy that sold electrically heated oil filters for cars. Seems it was an electrically heated oil filter body, or case, and that you inserted a roll of toilet paper for the filtering element. Could this remove "crap" from the oil better than a regular filter ? Is there some sort of a "crap in the oil" connection with the toilet paper? That idea is about as stupid as the one presently under discussion re. kerosene for an engine "flush". No wait a second, there may be some connection.

Bob Swinney

the kerosene thing is mentioned in the service manual for my 1938 plymouth - as I recall, add, idle, drain, and refil with regular oil - no longer practiced, we have detergents in oil.

Good question. People would bring in old engines and ask him to convert them. Those were probably the ones that were hopeless but he'd tell them he could "cure it or kill it" if they wanted to take a chance.

Doing those conversions was pretty good business back in the '50s.

Oh, that one. I thought they'd dressed it up recently or something.

That reminds me of a personna I once adopted as a joke, in which I claimed to have been the inventor of WD39, but then I gave up. d8-)

-- Ed Huntress

On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 12:54:23 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm, "Wild_Bill" quickly quoth:

Having seen several pounds of sludge come off the interior of an old engine and completely plug/foul the oil filter (which opened the pump bypass, putting crud in the bearings) I recommend against any of the above. I don't think the guy ever changed oil, just added when it was low. Anyway, bearings do NOT like the crunchy gunk and get loud when it's run past their surfaces. When we pulled the rocker covers, there was a quarter inch of caked crap still on them, and the oil pan was half full of solids which melted off the block. 35 years later, I still wonder how that engine ever ran.

Use a good detergent oil (my fave is Castrol GTX) and leave whatever crud is on the walls of the engine where they are. If you want to remove crud, overhaul the engine.

WD-40 is not a lubricant, nor is straight STP. Use oil instead.

-- After all, it is those who have a deep and real inner life who are best able to deal with the irritating details of outer life. -- Evelyn Underhill

I can imagine it would work on really old engines if you did it regularly and just ran the engine lightly. My guess is that the problems crop up when you use it to try to salvage an engine that's already full of crud, and you run it too hard or long.

-- Ed Huntress

You are correct Ed. On older engines it was actually "recommended" and "common practice" to add a quart of Kero, stove oil, or diesel fuel to the crankcase and run it for 20 minutes or so before draining the oil. The oil was non-detergent, and in most cases the engine had no oil filter. The oil was changed at 1000 mile intervals, and very often it was not necessary to drain a quart before addin the kero as the oil level was already down a quart.

Done regularly there was no deposit build-up to warry about.

In later years, another common "fix" which was less agressive was to put Shaler Rislone or Marvel Mystery Oil (MMO) or Dexron transmission fluid in the oil of a neglected engine. The dirtier the engine was, the less you put in and the oftener you changed the oil. A pint per change, changed every 250 miles, wouild safely clean up a pretty badly gummed up engine within 1000 miles or so.

The only engine I ever blew this way was a 1965 225 valiant with about

100,000 miles on what was likely about 2 oil changes. The crud was hard as diamond and we chipped away as much as we could from the rocker area. Most likely some of that crud dropped into the pan and likely did more to contribute to the plugging of the inlet screen 20 miles later than the addition of a quart of furnace oil to the crankcase did. The engine was likely beyond salvage either way, even before we opened it up to attempt to adjust the valve clearances.

Most old motors use "Zoom Spout Turbine Oil". Failing that, two cycle gas mix oil works very well, don't mix in any gasoline. Non detergent ND-30 or ND-20 oil is also acceptable.

Motors shouldn't use detergent oil like 10W30 because the detergent attracts moisture. WD-40 is too light, and dries up. 3 n 1 oil is worse than useless.

Typically two or one drops of oil every couple months. More often, if you use the motor a lot.

"Stormin Mormon" fired this volley in news:4742dd9a$0$28832$ snipped-for-privacy@roadrunner.com:

Stormy, I have a very old Craftsman 1/2-horse motor on my Cincy#2 mill. The motor weighs about 120lb. It's badged with "two drops of 10W oil per bearing, twice a year. Do not over-lubricate."

LLoyd

innews:4742dd9a$0$28832$ snipped-for-privacy@roadrunner.com:

Even that might be too much. I remember a GE ball bearing motor that GE recommended greasing every ten years if used 8 hours a day.

Dan

Thank you for the correction. I must be over lubricating!