The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop The Color of Oil!

Bought my total stock 1950, 3604 truck in September 2005 and over the next few year
put about 8,000 miles of trouble free fair weather driving on it. The bad part was that she
used a LOT of oil during those 8,000 miles. My compression was right up there and ya
couldn’t see it smokin’ out the tail pipe, well, maybe at night in the headlights of the cars
behind ya you could see a little haze, but there wasn’t any noticeable smoke in the day
light and cleaning the plugs every 1,000 miles or so kept her running sweet as honey. See
when I say she used a LOT of oil I mean 1 quart every hunert or hunert-n-fifty miles.
Heck, my joy riding was costing me more for Rotella-T than it was for the petrol I was
burning. The fact was that I was getting an oil change every five or six hundred miles, but
I did do a real drain at about 1K just to flush out any of the black stuff, which made the
fresh earl look like India ink after a couple hundred miles.

Back in the fall of 2009 I decided to put the new front bumper on, which I’d bought the
first year that Bluebelle and I had meet. Well a new front bumper warranted nice fresh
looking brackets so they came off. The gravel pan was already in a position for renewal
residing between the two and while I was at it the grill could use a little sprucing up and
on it went till the whole front clip was scattered about the garage. This offered easy
access to the steering gear and at long last the Engine and transmission so now was the
time to end the oil consumption that had been eating away at me for the past four
years.
Checking the bore revealed a slight ridge and about .006“-.008” cylinder wear from the
62,000 miles of faithful service she‘s performed over the past six decades. A month or so
at the machine shop had the engine back home for assembly. Another year of
procrastination went buy getting all the body parts, steering gear, and transmission back
in shape. But it all came together this fall and in October I started giving her some road
time. We just finished up with the Christmas bit and so far I’ve managed to put a little
over 2,000 miles on the old gal. Changed the break-in oil at 500 miles, clear as a drop of
dew and I’m now at about 1.500 miles on this charge of oil and it’s the same, clean as a
whistle and that‘s with out any filter mind you!. And what I really like, the line on the
dip-stick has hardly moved in all that time.
So I’m forecasting the color of oil for 2012 to be, all clear.

Signed,
One happy camper,
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Cool, my '38 is going in this week or next for bypass surgery. I have a wrist pin that's decided to retire.

What MPG are you getting after the rebuild?

Actually I've been getting a little worse mileage than I was before the rebuild Gus. I'm using
the same carb (a W-1), the same distributor (on the ball), same plugs (AC R45), the same
gas station. I have been a lot more aggressive in my driving though and have put a lot of
miles on the interstate, toll ways and freeway and have been pushing it to keep up with
the 55mph limits.
I was running between 12 and 13 mpg before and now over the past 2k or 16-18 fill ups
I'm averaging between 11 and 12. So it seems that it's dropped off by about a mile per
gallon. However, no cost for oil!
It may just be that she's still a little tight although I don't notice that when she starts hot
or cold, it could be because she is .020" over bore, it could be the way I've been driving
her and it could be a combination of all of these.

Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

your milage should inprove as the engine starts to "wear in", their always a little tight after a rebuild. Keep drivin and change the oil, check the valves and try to avoid downshift that rev up the rpms while braking.

Here is an interesting thought. I wonder if the combustion of oil along with the gas contributes some energy as a fuel to the running of the engine.

You're thinkin' to hard Fred, I doubt seriously if that would have any bearing on it at all. In fact all the carbon that was created even appeared to have pock marked the valve seats from the valve job that was done when I first brough her home 8,000 miles ago. Luckly just touching them up with a little lapping compound and a stick cleaned them up without widening out the seats to much.

DG

Denny,
I wasn't commenting in relation to your apparent change in mileage. I was just wondering what affect burning oil would have in the actual amount of mechanical energy retrieved from the process.

Fred

gasoline = about 114,000btu/gallon .... waste oil = over 150,000btu/gallon .... maybe we should stop complaining about our worn out engines

Bill

yeah, but any extra energy produced is quite easily seen coming out the crankcase vents in the form of blowby. Not measured at the crankshaft.

Just goes to show ya, don't use petrol to heat your house, right Willam!

Hey Fred, just pullin' you leg buddy, I know where you were headed. I tend to get off on those "what if" tangents all the time, as ya'll know by now...

Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Denny,
were you new pistons made by Egge. Mine were and the rings were much thinner, a more modern design. I was kind of surprised at the time when I bought them.

Fred

Yep Egge supplied them. They might be the only ones around making new pistons for
our stovebolts now. Hope the Egg doesn't decide to retire and shut down the
business in the near future.

DG

Ross makes "racing" pistons and Arias does or did also.

Don't know if they are making the stock replacement pistons for the older Stovebolts though Dave. But I do know that EGGE is.

DG

ross and venolia makes stock as well as higher compression as But they ain't cheap.

TRW still makes forged pistons for them.

federal mogul sealed power pistons are in my 1954 261,with hasting rings.
sealed power pistons
hasting rings

Tim