Request Input: UOA Quick Start Guide

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I am new to UOAs and have spent the last week researching and reading many reports to getting a basic understand of it all.
To help myself and others, I have put together a "Quick Start Guide" for the absolute beginner to explain just the basics.

Could you please review it for accuracy and grammar (if you want
smile.gif
)
Please remember, my goal is a quick start guide to give you a basic understanding in minutes.
As you will see much of the finer details have been left out.

-Thank you in advance!

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This is a “guided tour” for the absolute beginner to understand your used oil analysis. It will take you to the important sections and explain what they mean to you.
This is a general guide to get you off to a quick start without getting into too much technical detail.

When looking at your UOA, first look at the SILICON levels. This shows how well your air filter is working. Generally it should be under 30 parts per million (PPM).
If your levels are much higher, you should have a look at your air filter / air box / intake tubing for tears or leaks.

To quickly determine engine wear, look at your:
IRON: Should be < 100-150 and indicates cylinder liner, cam lobes oil pump wear
ALUMINIUM: Should be < 30-50 and indicates piston wear.
LEAD: Should be < 30-50 and indicates crankshaft / connecting rod bearing wear.
COPPER: Should be < 30-50 and indicates bearing wear.
CHROMIUM: Should be

To check for oil contamination look at:
SILICON: (see above)

FUEL: should be less than 2-3%. This is caused by excessive idling or cold starts with short drives. The more fuel in your oil, the thinner the oil will be.

GLYCOL (engine coolant): Should be 0. If not, there might be a issue with a head gasket, water pump, cracked block or something else in the cooling system.

WATER: Should be 0 - 0.2%. Can be caused by short drives where the oil does not get up to temperature. Depending on outside temperature it can take a
10-20 minute drive to warm up the oil to the proper temperature to evaporate the water.

To check oil condition look at:
VISCOSITY: This will have 2 parts:
High temperature viscosity at 100°C (cSt) or 210°F (SUS)
Low temperature viscosity at 40°C (cSt)
This will tell you if your oil has thinned out or thickened
The report will tell you what the normal range is for your oil.

TBN / BN: Total Base Number / Base Number
This is a measure of how much of the active additives remains to neutralize acid.
At 1.0 or lower it is time to change your oil.
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Wow, this is great. I was actually thinking about doing the same thing.

Overall, this aligns well with the knowledge I've been gathering too from the crew here at BITOG. My inputs:

- Add "Flashpoint" - This seems to be another good tell of fuel dilution.
- For the "causes", you might want to say something like "likely reasons are...". My thoughts being the actual reason for a particular issue may vary engine to engine. For example, your note about fuel dilution. My EB motor is know for fuel dilution. Yet, my engine with 20% idle time didn't have any fuel in my last UOA. And there are other high-mileage, hard-driven EBs here with fuel issues.

But in general, great job
 
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