Freaky Fill

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Here is what I put in my 146,000 mile 4.9L inline six F150 today:

2 qts SM Valvoline Conventional 20w
2.5 qts SM Durablend 20w50
0.5 qts SL Durablend 10w40
0.25 qts SL Maxlife 10w40
0.25 qts CD2 75000 Mile Additive
a few leftover ounces of Castrol GTX Startup 10w40

Why? Because it was there on the shelf in my oil room.

Calculates out to 12.3 cSt and should be close to a 20w40.
 
Quote:


2 qts SM Valvoline Conventional 20w





Where'd you find the straight 20 grade?
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Next Round will be winter, so probably just a normal fill of 10w30 Maxlife.

Valvoline SAE 20 is available at most Murrays auto parts stores. I think you also can order it from NAPA. I think when I called NAPA they could also get 10W, maybe in their own brand.

Basically I used up all my partial quarts and some of the odd grades that I would never use as straight fill.

BTW, that 20w50 is listed as 18.5 cSt, on the thin side for 20w50, but when I poured it in I could visibly see it was a lot thicker and slower pouring, not like VSOT, but significantly thicker than 10w40.
 
This fill isn't freaky...this is typical TallPaul after a year's worth of Maxlife and he happened to clean out the garage of all of the "other" oils that he might have tried on his lawn equipment.
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Heck, I've even dumped leftover gear lube into the in-laws oil burner, just to get it out of the way. Yes, yes, I know, NOT good for the yellow metal in the bearings, but I couldn't see just recycling something that I paid for without using it somewhere...besides it definitely got "used" in that car, as it uses 'bout a quart every 500-700 miles. It has a slow leak, and a consumption issue, but being a '96 Grand Prix with the 3.4 V-6 with over 115K miles AND has been beaten by in-laws that could care less about normal routine maintenance on a vehicle, who cares what goes in THAT crankcase at this point...
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20w-40??!!

Do you need an oil that thick? Seriously, or are you just experimenting?

I can attest to running 5w-40 in 2 vehicles, and a 15w40 in the diesel; but isn't a 20w kind of thick for a gas engine in Detroit?

Or, does it in fact get very hot during summer there? I don't know, never been there.
 
Detroit is not the hottest climate. We generally run in the 80s and 90s for summer.

In summer I don't worry about thick on the front number. In fact, I could run a straight 40. But winter I want no thicker than 10w.

This was no experiment. In fact, I was going to put in 15w40 and at the last minute decided to do this. Might work up some 15w40 (mix 20w with 10w40) and run it in the Aerostar next summer.

I have 9 more quarts of the 20w, 5 quarts of Maxlife straight 30, and three more quarts of the 20w50, so I can play around a bit more in the future. But most of my stash is 10w30 (Maxlife for the Aerostar and Maxlife Synthetic for the motorhome) with some 10w40 for the pickup.
 
TallPaul and a few others are living proof that some obsess to much over mixing oil. I've yet to hear of any of his engines grenading. And if someone posts the group III additive pack clash link I'll puke.
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I did the same thing with my wife's Tahoe. I just poured every bottle of unmatching oil into the crankcase...**ck it!! No problem at all over an OLM interval.

As a matter of fact, I believe it actually helped the cold start piston slap quite a bit!.
 
Since discovering BITOG, I have purchaced at close out prices of about $1.00 per qt:

Mobil 1 0W30/0W20/5W30
Havline Syn 5W30/10W30
Super Tech Syn 5W30
Pennzoil Platinum 5W30(about $2.50 per qt)
A whole bunch of other Group III Syn for .75 cents per qt.
And a variety of dino oils for less than .49 cents per qt.

I had and still do have quite a few qts of oil and, for the most part I grab 1 qt of each when I do my oil/filter changes. Heres what my oil changes look like...

1 Mobil-1
1 Havoline Syn
1 SuperTech Syn
1 Pennz Plat
1 dino(name brand)

I run OCI of 5000 miles or more, my engines sound great and my MPG has never been better.
 
Quote:


Here is what I put in my 146,000 mile 4.9L inline six F150 today:

2 qts SM Valvoline Conventional 20w
2.5 qts SM Durablend 20w50
0.5 qts SL Durablend 10w40
0.25 qts SL Maxlife 10w40
0.25 qts CD2 75000 Mile Additive
a few leftover ounces of Castrol GTX Startup 10w40

Why? Because it was there on the shelf in my oil room.

Calculates out to 12.3 cSt and should be close to a 20w40.




TallPaul,
I have owned 2 F-150s with the 300 Engine(an '83 and '87)
Both ran perfectly on ANYTHING...
I did similar "backyard blends" too, but back then it was out of financial necessity.

The trucks ran and drove great, too bad the bodies rusted away to almost nothing....

I have a feeling that youre engine will be just fine...
cheers.gif


Bob
 
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Perhaps instead of TallPaul we should call you FrankenPaul?


I like it! Coincidentally I happen to be a Frankenstein freak and have been collecting different editions of the book. Have about a dozen so far. There were two versions (can't remember the dates, something like 1818 and 1935 maybe).
 
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