The Trials and Tribulations of Trying Synthetic

[Winston]

How cutting open the oil filter and taking a look inside.

You are attributing the fix to this problem was the dino oil. If the M1 did dislodge the crud it is in your oil filter and now that you changed it, you have solved your problem (temporarily). Also, you may have dislodged some crud from the oil pick-up screen when you drained your oil.

Put in some ARX.

Can you get some pix of your cut -up oil filter?

 

[JohnBrowning]

At 15,000 miles ekpolk synthetic oil will clean that ligt begining varnish. It is still new and soft enough to probably not need a whole lot in the line of cleaning. That stuff you are seeing that is dark but not gritty is varnish. It is not completly disolved and is probably too dense to stay in solution. I would bet that it goes away within one more OCI. Auto-RX though will get this thing clean even faster though!

 

[Tempest]

For what it is worth, the oil pressure gauge in my Ranger would do the happy dance for the first couple of minutes in the morning after I put in Amsoil (only dino before). Wild swings up and down. Only did it 2 or 3 times, and would quickly go away after the truck warmed up.

Engine ran the same so I figured it was just the sender. Has not done it since, and pressure is good, engine runs better than ever.

 

[FusilliJerry82]

quote:

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Originally posted by JohnBrowning:
I do not buy the synthetic as the case of the problem. Obviously their is a mechanical problem caused by deposits. The old sending unit is probably fine and the symptoms you were experincesing were like early warning signs of oil pressure issues!

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If oil pressure is low at idle but climbs with RPM's then your mains are geting loose. If the oil pressure is ok at idle but drops with RPM's then your rod bearings are loose. If your oil pressure is not within spec. at idle or at RPM then the oil pump needs serviceing.

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The level with the old sending unit fluctuated with no real rhyme or reason. When the new one went in, oil pressure shot up immediately and never gave me trouble (until the aforementioned incident). Since then, the gauge has been at least at normal (usually a bit above) consistently without exception. The sending unit was definitely bad.

As for my whole reason for posting, I think you're missing my point. I'm not "blaming" synthetic per-se for what happened. It did what it was supposed to in cleaning and did a fantastic job lubricating in the time before this all happened. As a matter of fact, as I said before, I plan to go back to synth after my auto-rxing. It is the sludge that ultimately did it, but I am saying that there is a risk in higher mileage engines that may be dirty. I took the risk and got the short straw.

BTW, I threw the filter out. I'll save the one I take out next time though.

 

[BrianWC]

But that's what he's saying FJ (and a lot of the rest of us), synthetic oil's solvent abilities are not that strong.