Technical A Rotella oil question.

Man what a different at***ude on that thread, but I noticed you didn't ask anyone for their opinion.

 

^^^^^ Consider’s the settling to be like bacon bits at the bottom of the collection can sitting a top the head panel of the stove.

 

I've worked on a Model T Ford engine, so I have an inkling of what lubrication is actually required to keep an engine going.

It ain't much.

 

The **** in the bottom is the additives settled out.

 

Anyone who has pulled a dipstick on an old truck thats been sitting in a junk yard for 40 years or so, will say "wow! the oil is still clean". No, the **** has settled to the bottom, and the oil looks just fine. Clean the oil pan...you'll find the old ****. It doesn't take 40 years, just put drain oil in a jug and pour it out 1 year later and there will be 1/4 inch of **** on the bottom, and oil clean enough for chain saws and squirt bottles etc on top.

So, old Rotella...you bet I'd use it in my old junk.

 

Imho; I would take a sample of the oil to a N.C. Machinery cat franchise or a Chevron oil distributer & have it ****yzed. I don't know what the current cost is but it would be worth it. They should be able to tell you if it is good to use & what the ppm chemical makeup is. When I was still working, we would have all our heavy equipment oils sampled & texted at every service. If it is ok & since you don't need to use it right away, I would turn the drum upside down to let anything that might have settled to the bottom loosen up or laying the drum on its side might do the same thing. Just my thoughts.

 

I have a story that may or may not apply. When I was in high school I had a buddy with a '55 Chevy station wagon, 235 and 3 speed. Not a ***y high school ride but it got him around. He used to regularly visit a local produce company's shop where they serviced their delivery trucks. When they changed oil they dumped the old stuff in a big open barrel behind the building. Most of the time there was a lid laying on it, sometimes not. He'd scoop up a bunch and put it in an old jug and add it to the wagon's engine when it the oil was low. He drove that car for several years, although leaving a blue cloud wherever he went the old wagon never failed him. Ran like a top.
Of course, "YRMV". Maybe we shouldn't be quite so timid, or surprised at what our old engines will handle.

 

WTF….Ralph TORCO?
Bob Lancaster was the founder of TORCO OIL. His first oil was blended for his brother-in-law’s motorcycle. He was able to stop or slow down “Black Death” on pistons using alcohol and especially nitromethane. KB got the first chance to use it. I used it for a NA engine on 75% nitro. There is nothing better for that application.

 

My dad ran a shop in Umbarger, Texas for several years. All the drain oil went into several barrels in the back of the shop. In a very short time much of the **** settled to the bottom of the barrels. Dad and a few others ran what looked clean through strainers and reused it. All of our farm equipment ran it as well as our car & pickup and my Cushman. We never had an issue because of the oil. Granted this was the '50s. The car & pickup were MOPAR flathead sixes and the tractors were mostly from the '30s. No high performance engines involved although the well motor was a Chrysler Industrial six that sometimes ran 24-7 for a week or so. I have no idea how much of that oil had made more than one trip through that shop.

 

(free) Waste oil is good for burning, for example in metal casting furnaces - for example (re)melting aluminum, br*** or cast iron. A young guy (mechanical engineering student - Steve Chastain?) designed and built a cast iron melting furnace / cupola that used waste oil for fuel, and wrote a book about it (which I have somewhere). It worked great - but sand-casting cast iron is not a surburbia-type activity and highly dangerous.

 

^^^^My dad used to turn in his 55 gallon drums of used oil to a truck repair shop that used a waste oil heater.

We’d have two barrels a year for them, they would pick it up and leave two empty drums.
Oh, he was running a set of bottom dumps and a transfer, 11/12? gallons per change didn’t take forever to fill a drum up.

 

Run that old used oil through *****hose, it will come out like new

 

Been runnig that **** for years. Good stuff. There is a expert here, but I don't think he wants to chime in. He's a good guy and knows his oil.

 

***uming @Blues4U ,
Hasn’t posted anything on here since early July, and was posting most days.
Hope all is well with him !

 

I'm going to tell you what I would do with the oil.
I would use it.
Because it's a 55 gallon drum I ***ume you can take the top off if that is the case I would take the top off then I would take a paint mixing attachment for my drill and I would put a few extensions on it until it fit the bottom of the oil drum then I would put it on my half inch drive right angle drill and I would mix the oil for a couple of minutes just to make sure any additives that were in it are back in suspension like they were when it was new.

I've never had a 55 gallon drum of oil before but I have bought quarts of oil from the '50s the 60s the 70s the 80s or the 90s from estate sales and I shake them really good and I use them. It's oil not milk it doesn't go bad. There is actually a great video on YouTube from "project farm" I am going to post here where he actually does a scientific test I can't believe the video is over 6 years old already it seems like yesterday I watched it. I was using the oil before I saw his video but his video just kind of confirmed what I already figured

Anyways that is my two cents.
I don't know if I would put 50-year-old oil in my race car engine but I drive beaters.
At the end of the day oil only has one job and that is to lubricate and as long as it lubricates it's the oil for me.

Now I am on the other hand a little picky on weights, 15/40 I would run in pretty much everything old without a question but some of those "new" oils that are like water that have came out since the late '90s I will put them in late model cars but I'm not going to put that in my old 460 ford that already has terrible oil pressure.

 

I need that little shop in my backyard my life would feel much more complete.
Especially if it has one of those really old round post lifts like the guy on YouTube from iron trap garage has

Such a cool little building in your photo.

 

I'd be curious what a lab test would show from a sample taken from the upper part of the barrel. Blackstone labs test for about $40.

 

The tops don't come off most oil drums, so not an option. And you can't get a paint mixing tool through the 2" bung to stir it up. So if I was gifted this drum of Rotella I would simply turn the barrel upside down and leave it for a week or two. Then lay it on it's side and every few days roll it to the opposite side. After awhile whatever might be settled at the bottom should mix back in and I'd use it.

 

Seems we have a lot of Wishbone Italian Dressing lovers here.

 

That old shop was a ramshackle collection of add ons back then and a bigger mess when I took these pictures several years ago. It is a lot bigger than it looks in the first picture. Lots of memories there "helping" Dad.


I have a sorta' related question. What can you put in Sta-Bil to keep it from going bad?

 

Flipping a 55 gal drum of oil over, etc, much easier said, than done

Around here somewhere is a “drum dolly”. Kinda like a hand truck, but made for oil drums. It would put a drum just a bit over laying flat, but it’s really more for getting the last bit of oil out of a drum that the pump wouldnt get to.

 

I love these debates. A lot.

A perfect mix of hard science, chemistry, empirical results, anecdotal experience, hard and soft evidence, opinions and more related variables thrown in than the weather to add to the indecision.

Use old oil; don’t use old oil?

I agree with everyone.

But, as my father said, “Any oil is better than no oil.”

Moselli

 

Those of us here in the Ballard district of Seattle, we all know who and what this is!

​

 

We had an old beater that had 152,900 miles on it when the odometer quit working. The old buggy had rust and a few dents, but the motor purred like a kitten. It was our 2nd car, I drove it to work (10 miles each way) 6 days a week. I probably drove it 4 or 5 years after the odometer quit working. I put gas in it every week, and added a quart of oil with about every other gas fill up. It got an oil and filter change twice a year, every spring, and every fall.
It was one of those rides where what oil was added was not as important as being sure there was oil there. It would not have bothered me to run that 40 year old oil at all!
For the record, the body rusted away long before the motor gave up, I pulled the motor and put into a different body. It outlasted that body as well.

I do oil changes based on how the oil feels, if its slippery, its OK, when it starts to loose the slippery, its time to change it, along with a filter, every oil change. That process has worked out for me pretty well for the 53 years I've been driving.

 

I use oil

Science says it’s millions of years old
Some say it the result of the great flood

all I know is it works.

 

When I was working at O'Reilly they sold recycled oil. I think it was a 50/50 blend of "new" oil and drain oil that had been refined again. I had no problem using it and never heard of any issues.

 

In high school I worked at a Texaco station. The owner also owned a building sandblasting and tuck pointing business. They had 4 or 5 large compressors on 2 wheel trailers they used on the jobs. We serviced them after big jobs. The compressors held about 5 or 6 gallons of oil. When we drained them the oil looked like new, however there was the possibility of getting some sand in it when we drained the compressor. My buddy would take a 5 gallon bucket home and use it in his cars. He just let it set for a few weeks so any sand would settle out.

 

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