The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Anyone use Delo400 in a 235?

Chevron advertises Delo 400 15W-40 as reducing oil consumption in diesel engines, and it is also rated SL for use in gasoline engines. Anyone use it in a 235? (or any gas engine) My 261 has been consuming more oil lately and I thought I'd try it out. The bearings and oil pressure are really good and it is too cold here in the winter for 20W-50.

Not possitive, but I think the 15w40 is heavier than the 20w50. I have pumped the 15w40 out of a drump that was out in the cold and it was really thick. Might be alright in the summer.

Put on a set of umbrella valve guide seals.If it still uses oil, take a teaspoon of Bon Ami,pour it into the carb at a fast idle.

I use shell rotella deisel 15w40 in all my older
stuff except in the dead of winter. Works great.
Less oil consumption & blowby.

I use Delo 400 in my Dodge/Cummins. Isn't the difference between oils designed for gasoline and diesel engines a difference in detergents?

Bon Ami down the carb?

I use shell rotella 15-40 in everything but the cummins. I figure if they are good enough for the cummins they are fine for a 50 year old engine. All of the diesel oils I have seen are dual rated for spark and compression ignition.

I only have Comet brand, will it work? Same amount as the Bon Ami? Brian

If you MUST pour abrasives down a carburetor, don't use anything but Bon Ami. Mix a couple of teaspoons with a lightweight oil like Marvel Mystery Oil, and pour it through the carb at a fast idle. Follow it up with large quantities of oil to try to wash the rest of the abrasive out. Then go buy a new set of piston rings, and do the job right.

The DELO oil will work just fine in your stovebolt. I've used it for a lot of years in gasoline engines, but don't expect it to reduce oil consumption any. 15W40 is slightly THINNER than 20W50, staying at the thickness of 15W oil all the time, but lubricating like 40 weight when it's hot.
Jerry

I agree about Rotella I have and still use it for years. Delo is an equally fine product

Tony PLEASE Don't tell anyone to use abrasive down the carb! That is just Bull [censored].Sorry,There is just no good reason to introduce abrasives into an engine!!!!!!!!!!!! NONE!!!!!!!!!!!
Valve stem seals,yes..a very good idea..but there are peole here that will believe you....after all you are in charge!!! Please think how people take that!

You know we can disagree on many things but if an engine needs rebuilding or reringing or anything else ...it just needs it!
Given all that if your not diving your truck much an extra quart of oil every few trips isn't bad unless the police get madd about the smoke.
I have told more that one 'Not to worry the Pope is OK!'

The basic idea is to keep your motor clean on the inside as well as outside

Oh,don't get hyper in your diaper , I'm bustin balls,4 on de Flo knows better then to dump a can of abrasives in the oil.
Several aircraft mechanics told me the abrasives story,it's even mentioned in aircraft engine repair manuals as a way of reducing oil consumption in newly overhauled engines.

Break given Tony but do know there are folks here that don't get the joke....their not at all stupid but may lack your experiance and time in the trenches
You do have power here to teach as well as joke and BS....

I spent hours talking a perfectly normal fellow out of this exact action.Once he read it it was the truth!

I'm glad you understand also that I not flaming you

My mail here is a mess when home I must change ISPs so many things I'd express in an outside the board mail gotta get said here for a couple weeks more.

Did you say hi to Tom? Ask him to send you a photo of the five pot GMC in their shop.

I'm not too worried about the smoke, what I consider bad most people don't even notice. I have been using Valvoline 10W30 in the engine and it puffs a bit on startup and long downgrades. It uses about a quart every 400 miles between burning and leaking. Oil pressure is great, 40 lbs at 1000 rpm warm.

The cops around here don't care about much, the DEQ/DMV is supposed to take care of the pollution stuff. As long as they can see your license plate through the cloud they won't bother you.

This engine is going to be rebuilt in the next year or two anyway.

The oil gets pretty dirty on this engine pretty fast, even with a full flow filter. Hopefully the Delo will be a bit better.

How cold does it get there? I'm running 20W-50 year round, just wait for a minute or two to get the oil temp up a few degrees. It usually gets down between 0 to -10 F here.

Nuther old trick,add a tablespoon of brake fluid to your oil when you change.It has a tendency to swell the valve seals a little.and cut down on oil consumption.

I should have said it softens the valve seals.

Tony , the lapping paste in the A/C engines is done on the work bench for each individual cylinder , then fully stripped and cleaned again .. NOT done while running .
I did my apprenticeship in Aircraft engineering .

I use Rotella 15W-40 in everything as well. I would also add a little Lucas oil stabilizer in my 235 as well. It says on the bottle how much to add--anywhere from 25% in an engine, to 100% in a noisy gearbox (I think...). Seemed to help a little...

It typically gets down to the low 20's here in the winter, and the truck is parked outside. I hate to use molassas in this engine since the bearing clearances are so good.

OK them pour in the Bon Ami, that'll loosen up the clearances so you can use 70 weight like the Harley guys
Dusty, I was told the story by a straight faced trained powerplant mechanic. :confused:

"straight faced " huh Tony ......... well I guess I don't have that skill .. .
I spent many hours at the lapping rig , fitting up P+W cylinders and stripping down pistons and ring sets after the time was done .
If the engine performed poorly on the test rig , it was stripped and rebuilt . often had a little bother with the chrome rings being so hard , hence the lapping process.

Hey Tony, If I can't buy Bon Ami around here, can I just use the worn out glass beads from my blasting cabinet? How would I know when they are broken down fine enough to approximate the grit in Bon Ami?

How about a little valve grinding compound? It used to work wonders back when I managed a truck shop! When business would get slow, the boss would disappear for a couple of hours, and we would start getting trailer wheel bearing jobs by the bunches that night. He was driving about 100 miles north to a big truck stop, and squirting about a tablespoon of valve grinding compound into oil-lubed trailer wheel bearings. The bearings would fail just a short distance from our shop! I didn't stay there long, couldn't stand all the crooked wheeling and dealing! It seems the lot lizards working the truck stop parking lot were working for my boss, plus he took a cut of the profit from the weed and wake-up pills that got sold there! Two weeks after I quit and headed back to California, the cops raided the place, and put the whole crew in jail. The boss bailed himself out, and disappeared, leaving the rest of the guys in the slammer!

He's so crooked, they'll have to screw him into his grave one of these days!
Jerry

It will be no problem using 20W-50 then, the 54 shop manual shows you can use 20W oil down to 10*F.
Looking at this page
http://www.vtr.org/maintain/oil-overview.html
shows there is little difference in the bottom pour temp with the 15W and 20W oils.

I started using Pennzoil 20W-50 in a worn 216, it slowed leaks and really lowered consumption. When I built my 235 I started using 20W-50 after my 1,000 mile change. 10,000 miles later and I still run 40 psi pressure.

HRL

My first hot rod lincoln was a 430 y-block with a 1/2 stroker crank and pontiac rods....Did you know you could grind a 1/2 stroke in this crank with no weldin' if you used these rods

800 ftlb @ 3400 rpm and 2 miles to the gal

It was in a 91inch Kurtis chassis...a road racer that would go EVERY direction at once when you stomped the gas

Had a B&M tank hydo on it with it's own ideas!!

The song goes something like this; You're gonna drive me to drinkin,if you don't stop drivin that Hot Rod Lincoln
Back to the oil....without Bon Ami....My 94 S10 4.3 always used a quart of oil about every 2000 or so miles.I tried the Valvoline Max Life oil in the same weight I was using ,10-40. Reduced oil consumption to a half quart.Might be it's thicker or whatever,but it worked in my case.
For the price of 5 quarts of oil, you can buy 12 umbrella seals for 11/32 valve stems, takes a few hours work with a KD spring compressor and a small air compressor.235/261's have only simple O ring valve seals like the old V-8's, not very effective if the quides are worn.
If the oil gets dirty real fast,sounds like blowby,worn rings anyways.

Jerry, that's a good one for the lies and stories thread. I would have reported the guy the first time I found out he was sabotaging people's trucks. (And I wouldn't have reported him to the cops, I would have reported him to the guys at the truck stop. Let them catch him at it.) It's one thing to build a frame and alignnment shop next to the nastiest railroad crossing in the state, but to go out and cause problems is just plain evil.