Well Jarry, I’m not sure if I agree with ya about that 15w40 being to thin when it’s hot and getting past the rings more than a straight weight. But I’m always willing to listen and experiment a little.
It’s getting durn near impossible to find straight weight motor oil now days. Nobody around here has the Rotella straight weight but I did find two gallons of Diesel Fleet Engine Oil SAE 30w, API Service CF-2, CF at the farm store.
Now not being a chemist or petroleum engineer I’ve no idea what the difference between Diesel Fleet Engine Oil and plain old Pennzoil straight weight motor oil is but I’m a gonna use it for the test.
I’m running multigrade Rotella 15w40 oil right now and using a quart every hundred or so miles. So, I’m gonna start feeding the two gallons of straight 30w into her as she needs it. I figure by the time I dump the last of the two gallons in it will pretty much be all straight weight oil. Then we’ll see if it makes a difference in the oil consumption.
Now mind you this isn’t a fogger like the mosquito truck, it isn’t showing any signs of oil burning in the day light, and if it wasn’t for the strong exhaust smell you would probably never notice anything out of the ordinary.
I would agree with ya all the way on the oil scraper being the problem Frank, this is what I believed all along because of the decent compression on mine also. However we differ when it comes to “healing it self,” that’s is a myth that Paul Harvey has spread around for decades. The reality of it is that the oil rings are most likely all potted into the lands with baked oil residue. The only way your gonna fix that is to pull the pistons and physically clean the lands and put new rings in. I wouldn’t bother going that deep into the engine with out doing a complete overhaul with new pistons, re-bore, check the line bore, and deck, regrind the crank, punch in new cam brgs and cam and upgrade the rods along with fresh top-end work.
If you going to go through the effort you might as well have something that is gonna be reliable and last you the rest of the time you own you truck. In the end I believe your money ahead.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
