off-road oil

[ROCKSOLID]

I have a 84' toyota with a 22R, it currently has 238k on it and just spun a bearing.

I am putting a new engine in next week and would like to know what the best oil to use for breaking it in.

This truck is now just a trailer queen and only sees off-road miles. It currently runs on propane..... my question is what is the best oil for the truck that only sees the worst conditions you can inagine: driving on its side with low oil pressure, 45+ degrees of incline or decline, side hills, long idling in 100+ temps, cold winters, lots of 3000-6000 rpm's at odd angles for long periods of time, and steep angles at idle for long periods of time.

Also filters? im not up to date with todays filters.


any help would be great

thank you

 

[Defiance665]

for break in youre gonna want something like a diesel oil, and a ZDDP additive. Break it in and then drain the oil and refill. Purolator Pureone/Wix are good mid range filters.
Rotella semi syn 10w30 would pry be a good oil, or full syn 10w40 if you want to go thicker.
More expensive alternatives would be mobil 1 High mileage (SL rated) or Amsoil High ZDDP formula.

 

[eljefino]

If you can go wide and long a ford FL1A/PF8A is a great filter.

Only long, a FL400s/PF3600.
Only wide, a PF16. (Cross reference to fram)

Do you know if oil starvation caused your current spun bearing? Nothing short of reengineering your sump (or driving conservatively) is going to fix that.

+1 on the rotella 10w30. With your RPMs you'll have plenty of pressure and don't need thicker.

 

[Chris142]

I don't think the larger filter is a good idea on this one.

If he starves it for oil it will take that much longer to fill up the filter and get pressure back into the system. A smaller #3614 filter will fill up much faster than a FL1A.

 

[JAG]

You should get an Accusump to provide oil when the oil pump gets starved. This is much more important than what oil and filter you use.

 

[Zaedock]

Hey man, welcome to the forum.

I drive my Jeep in conditions just like you described. I typically run 5W30 in winter and either 10W40 or SAE30 (depending on which is up next via date code) during the Spring/Summer/early Fall seasons. Last year I went to Moab in October and drove around for a week with QS Q-Torquepower 5W30. Even ingested some when I rolled in one of those hot tubs.

I don't know what part of Oregon you're from, but it's probably similar to what's here in New England. Slick and rocky with spurts of wheel speed and driving on your side to roll yourself back over. I think a solid 10W40 or 15W40 would be a nice oil to run in the main season. You could probably get by with a 5W40 and get the best of both worlds. Personally, I like to change oil twice a year, as it gives me piece of mind that I remove both contaminants and fuel dillution. The amount of time our engines stay running vs the distance we travel, it would probably be better to track fuel usage instead of miles driven. Gary Allen suggested that to me once, but I'm lazy.

 

[Gary Allan]

Quote:
Gary Allen suggested that to me once, but I'm lazy.


He is too. That's why he just calculates MPG and integrates that figure vs. more favorable conditions. If you're getting 8mpg out of your 4.0, then you're about 2-2.5x the normal fuel usage.

To the OP, there's not much to compensate for your frequently encountered conditions. Dry sump would do it, I imagine.

 

[ROCKSOLID]

thank you for the replies.

i was thinking of using a mobil 1 filter and breaking in the engine with 15w40 delo 400 LE.

then changing the oil and filter with another mobil 1 and running 10w30 penzoil ultra to clean out all the delo.

i think one of the reasons the bearing failed was the oil that was in there had not been changed in over 2 years.

any thoughts?

thanks

 

[ROCKSOLID]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
If you can go wide and long a ford FL1A/PF8A is a great filter.

Only long, a FL400s/PF3600.
Only wide, a PF16. (Cross reference to fram)

Do you know if oil starvation caused your current spun bearing? Nothing short of reengineering your sump (or driving conservatively) is going to fix that.

+1 on the rotella 10w30. With your RPMs you'll have plenty of pressure and don't need thicker.


i think that it was a combination of the angle, rpm, and old oil.

and the driving conservatively is not an option as this is a toy and its build for abuse.

 

[Gary Allan]

In this type of usage you're into some fairly frequent refresh rate on the engine. If you snag something in the process ..well that's just what happens. The conditions are just too extreme to build for (aside from something like a dry sump).

 

[Zaedock]

Originally Posted By: Gary Allan
The conditions are just too extreme to build for (aside from something like a dry sump).


X2. All the buggy guys I know, including one who competed and placed 24th in King Of the Hammers, run standard sump oil systems. The buggy I'm building based on a 2000 TJ 4.0L will remain stock. The only thing that will change will be the rear mount radiator.

In my 2.5L YJ trail rig, I use a larger Motorcraft FL300 filter and add 5 qts of oil as opposed to the recommended 4 qts. I've maintained pressure on my side and it has never lost oil pressure when climbing.

 

[dnewton3]

trailer'd vehicle + severe off road use = dry sump system.

If you can see the advantage of using propane for a fuel source, then dry sump systems should make sense too!

 

[ROCKSOLID]

I would love to have a dry sump system but that is not in the budget at the moment.

Any feed back on the mobil 1 filter?

which brand and weight oil?

seems to me that anyone that is running ther engine hard is using a 10w40, 15w40, or even a 20w50.

 

[IndyIan]

I assume that a 15W40 or 20W50 protects better for a while without oil pressure that a thinner oil. I use Rotella T 15W40 in the summer in almost everything, cheap and should protect well even if I'm running my cars or ATV hard.

 

[Gary Allan]

I would think that the add pack potency would be the biggest factor. That's all you have left if you've got no oil pressure. That would tend to be the SJ 20w-50 flavor of racing add levels. Now the higher visc would surely leave you a bit more time before it smokes up and welds some stuff together.

In this case doping it with ZDDP PLUS or VSOT probably wouldn't be an unwise act.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Dominator 15w-50!

 

[ROCKSOLID]

alot of good info on here, what are the addvantages of rotella over delo 400 le?

could i run 20w50 and still be safe?

 

[Gary Allan]

There's not much advantage with RTS 5w-40 over the conventional 15w-40, imo. Not at your thrash rate. If this was a mixed street deal in a 4 season thing it would make more sense.

20w-50 was a spec for the 4.2 version of this engine in the 70's. I think you may consider something with an SG/SH rating.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: ROCKSOLID
seems to me that anyone that is running ther engine hard is using a 10w40, 15w40, or even a 20w50.


Well, you've got one very solid advantage with running propane: you'll have zero fuel dilution issues.