valvecover removed pics

[haley10]

No conclusions draw either way here. Sprintman did retract his statement somewhat. Notice is taken.

It just reminded me that there is no holy grail and another reason I need to get a UOA. A manfunctioning pcv/egr (system) can do horrible things. I worry about that on my old truck, because the computer won't indicate it.

No whacks on GC. I just realized I need to give my current lube a full chance to do it's thing.

 

[Patman]

Anyone who doesn't want their GC can just send it all to me!

 

[haley10]

Patman, what is your impression of the cold crank and do you know the HT/HS off-hand??

 

[unDummy]

A UOA doesn't tell you whats sticking to the engine. Hell, stuff sticking to the valve covers might even make a UOA look good. All the crap is in the engine and not the oil.

I've had PCV valves last 100k miles with no issues. Seems to me that its early death is caused by the ..............

We need more people turboing, racing, autocrossing, offroading,.....with GC and post those results. This oil is overrated and nothing special.

 

[Dr. T]

No, all comments are good. Although I can't say I remember seeing that same crap on my BMW oil filler cap, the same stuff did coat my entire insides as viewed down inside the filler area. Not the oil's fault? Hmmm....

 

[haley10]

Yep, all comments are good.

This is how we learn for real.

 

[Patman]

quote:

---

Originally posted by haley10:
Patman, what is your impression of the cold crank and do you know the HT/HS off-hand??

---

The CCS Viscosity is 3200 at -30C and the HTHS is 3.6.

 

[Patman]

quote:

---

Originally posted by unDummy:


We need more people turboing, racing, autocrossing, offroading,.....with GC and post those results. This oil is overrated and nothing special.

---

I drive the snot out of my Firebird, and saw very low wear in my first UOA with GC (and typically the second UOA shows even lower wear) I got only 3.6ppm of lead (3.1 if you subtract what was in the VOA) and 8.2 iron (4.8 if you subtract the VOA value) during a 3100 mile interval. Extremely low wear for a 350ci V8!

 

[haley10]

Superb Patman. I'll revisit when the flames die down. Thanks.

 

[Doug Hillary]

Hi,
Quadrun1 - sorry for the late response to your question but no UOA was undertaken
Without going into the details the engine ( it seized an oil pump drive at about 80kkms ) was inspected by two Engineers and I and our collective opinion was that it - GC SLX - contributed to/caused the failure. They had seen similar deposits in other German engines when using that oil

Other similar engines on other oils had given no problems

The reapiring Dealership only used Castrol products - GC SLX in new cars, and stopped its use soon after.
My car was not purchased from or serviced by that Dealership

Castrol's SLX 0w030 in SL form was progressively withdrawn from sale here in Australia during the last several years and finally "cleared off" in the last 18 months

Yesterday in Brisbane I saw a 5lr of each SJ and SL SLX on a sales shelf @ $A101. The SLX SJ pack must be at least 4 or 5 years old
Alongside them was "R" 5w-30 for $A51 and "R" 0w-40 for $A84
The "R" products seem to have a good reputation. For a rebadged BP product - or vice versa!

Castrol of course will not elaborate as to why their extremely heavily promoted GC SLX was withdrawn from sale here. However, the name SLX is gone now - "R" rules

I also used GC SLX SJ in an Explorer, Daewoo, BMW R100RS and something else?. After the VW failure I stopped using it forthwith

Later versions of GC SLX 0w-30 may be excellent in many engines - do UOAs and check for deposits!

Regards

 

[Dr. T]

Doug, on sale for $101? That's more than the price of the other 2...

 

[Terry]

I may have seemed to attack others honest comments here, I apologize to Sprint and Haley 10 and any others if it was taken that way.

I just don't ever want to see BITOG head DOWN the path of "he said, she said" when it comes to lubes etc.

If this oil has a problem I'll sure see it in UOA's.

I am just beginning to see them come through and if you have info from AUSSIELAND that I can correlate send it or share it here, please.


Terry

 

[JoggingGuy]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Terry:
WARNING TO ALL CHICKEN LITTLES AND DRAWING INCORRECT CONCLUSIONS..

This site was set up to help clear the air on marketing obfuscation about lubes etc. Lets try to keep it that way.

Please don't jump back and forth in your posts about this or any other product until we see solid evidence condemning the engine or oil or whatever. Give the guy a chance to figure out what happened.

Those that do post remember that a newer reader or visitor may take your post as gospel so please keep the write ups factual.

Post what you know and leave the chicken little "crap" off the board.

Drives me

nuts.

---

Firestone's Law of Forecasting: Chicken Little only has to be right once.

 

[JohnBrowning]

We might want to yank some valve covers off after 2-3 runs of GC just to see if this is a problem or isolated and unrelated incident! Personely not be very good yet at reading UOA I like to tear into an engine and visualy inspect, measure and weight parts! SOmetimes both methods can complement each other!

 

[Terry]

Quadrun1, LC for the duration of the next oil change or a 1500 mile Auto-RX cleaning may be in order.


A thorough oil analysis study of his trending may yield the answer to the proble without tearing the cover off each time but I agree with John that sometimes it is needed if the reports are being blinded somehow or misinterpreted.

My goal as an analyst is to make sure that I don't recommend digging into a problem engine unless absolutely necessary. If I suggest to a customer to fix something I am serious about it.

The really cool thing about what I do is that 90% of the time I can ID a problem and really save time and trouble not to mention $$$.

Same reason the F1 guys use real time telemetry in competition.

I'm just a bit behind with these things but the premise is the same.

Terry

 

[Motorbike]

I have to wonder if the fuel problem has gotten worse after this analysis ?

click me


Got a colder T-Stat in that engine ? would be another question


Got a colder T-Stat and a fuel problem ? would be a 3rd question I've got while hunting around here a little

[ January 30, 2004, 06:54 PM: Message edited by: Motorbike ]

 

[Bobert]

German Castrol users: "Please show us your valve covers!"

 

[oilcanboyd]

there may be even more fuel in the oil on my current sample sitting on my desk b/c i did about 150 miles of road racing at willow springs. if anyone has been to willow springs, they would know that the track is very high speed. there are no 1st or 2nd gear turns and i go into 5th for about 2 seconds. i used approx. two tanks of gas on that 150 miles driven at willow. there is no oil cooler on my car and i never checked my water temp gauge b/c i was more worried about going off the track at 100+ mph.

i just cleaned out the oil seperator unit as well as all the hoses with throttle body cleaner. i installed a new fram pcv valve, so i hope that this wont occur again. i have no plans as far as additives go until i get my oil analyzed by terry sometime this week. maybe next time i wont do a 4700 mile OCI when i go road racing.

 

[Patman]

Every single UOA I get with GC in my Firebird will be interpreted by Terry, so I'm sure he'll let me know if I'm running into a problem. I am honestly not worried at this point, I highly doubt that any oil could possibly cause a problem like this. It's something mechanical causing it.

 

[Doug Hillary]

Hi,
Patman - history is littered with engines that were sub standard in design and were lubricated by sub-standard products. Some merely had simple design miscalculations. Others were of a greater magnitude

I have seen many engines where both have contributed to failures of various types in various components

Burmah's Castrol was not immune from this and those that can recall the 1960's may remember the characteristic Castrol "black smudge" - and very very dirty engines! Sometimes it was a "white milkshake".
This did NOT always affect engine durability either

Some on here may recall the great "black sludge" plague in Euro car engines not so many years ago

Perhaps this event even accelerated the formulation of the ACEA standards!

In recent times with CAD/CAM etc these things have lessoned greatly. EFI was probably the greatest contributer to cleaner engines - both internally and from an emmissions viewpoint. And the ACEA stsndards will keep the API "honest" and focused

Sadly however UOAs do not always tell the "inside story". As I suggested earlier, and I think Terry has said too, an internal "snapshot" may be a good second string test where any doubts exist

Whenever changing a lubricant brand and type I have NEVER relied solely on UOAs to confirm its performance. It is always a case of test and confirm for me!

Regards