Technical Old Wives Tale about non detergent oil

Oh no! Not another oil thread!! Nope, I just need help with an Old Wives Tale from Monroe County Illinois. Around here, if you pickup an old piece of equipment, car, truck, tractor, etc, the old farmers will advise you upon changing the oil, not to use “new fangled detergent engine oil”. Their reasoning is this “if you change the oil and put detergent engine oil in it, it will dissolve all of the stuff holding the engine together and the engine will blow up”. I’ve heard this for 35? years, but yet to see it in action. Unfortunately, my Dear Old Dad followed this line of thinking (Union Carpenter by trade) and wouldn’t let me near our 1950 3100 with anything but good old ND 30w. Never mind I’m an ASE Certified Master Auto and Master Medium/Heavy Duty Truck Technician. What brought this question up was, I was looking for some kind of oil to dump in my profusely leaking tractor hydraulic system and found 3 quarts of ND 30w the other day and it reminded me of this old wives tale. What do you guys think, have you heard this one??

 

I’ve heard it.
Truth? Crap if I know.
I’ve only run ND oil in junk without filters

 

I try to stay away from old wives. I have heard the same thing. I have been told that the detergent loosens the crud that is stuck in the pan and engine. Then all the crud goes through the bearings. It does make sense.

 

Yes, that was supposedly the cause of every oil burner that burned lots of oil back in the day. Why, every pickup ever built would still be a runnin' if not for that durned newfangled high detergent oil. Flat rooned 'em.

 

I've heard it for yrs too.

It was explained to me as this, the old non detergent oils built up crud inside the engines. Using detergent oils breaks this crud loose which in turn clogs up the oil pickup screens which in turn starves the engine of oil and thus a thrown rod, spun bearing etc.

Is it true? Don't know but I understand the thinking behind it.


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I worked at Freightliner in the 60's and 70's, and the new truck engines left the the plant with RPM Delo and later the Union Oil equivalent, a very high detergent oil. The employees could buy it for 10 cents a quart, to dump in their old worn engines in their work cars. I remember, several cases, when it would scrub, the sludge loose and they would smoke like hell. I bought my 65 Falcon from a fellow employee, who bought it nearly new and ran the stuff for around 5 years before selling it to me. So I continued using it, and at 196,000 miles, and that 289 was as clean as brand new inside.

 

As a young mechanic in the early 80s an old gal brought in her early 60s mopar with a poly 318 in it . She had always used non detergent oil and STP in it. The oil light was flickering on and off ... When I pulled the pan it looked like chocolate pudding. Amazingly I cleaned it out and put it back on and she drove it until she couldn't drive anymore. PS I forgot to say when I pulled the drain plug nothing came out

 

I heard it from the time I was young and I am 76 now.
One has to remember that along with the ND 30 many of those cars never got past the city limits sign unless they were in a funeral procession on the way out to the cemetary a mile out of town. They never got up to enough speed for the road draft tube to even come into effect and unless the owner let it sit and idle in the driveway to warm it enough for the heater to work in winter the engine never got warm enough for the thermostat to open. Then the owner either traded it in or it was sold when they weren't able to drive anymore and someone's dad bought it for his teenager's first car because dad thought it was the greatest car in the world because it had never been driven on the highway, had never been driven out of town and was still as shiny as a new penny.

First thing the kid did the first Saturday was change the oil and filter and put in new detergent oil because he wanted to run the good stuff and change the plugs and points and then head off to the bigger town a few miles down the road to cruise the ave in his new to him ride. A few of those out of town road trips and the rods started knocking and it had to be towed home. I worked on one of those who belonged to a high school buddy back in the 60's in high school auto shop. His dad was cussing him telling him how he had hot rodded and ruined a perfect car and giving some of us where his buddies a ration of crap to boot, As he didn't have the money to take it to a shop in town we got it in the school shop and pulled the pan to see how bad it was, When we dropped the pan there was about 2 or more inches of sludge in the bottom with a detent where the oil screen had been and looking at the oil screen it was plugged solid. The instructor got the kid's dad down there and then explained that the issue was the sludged up engine rather than the kid's driving. We ended up pulling the engine, sending the crank out to be turned and doing a ring, bearing and valve job on the engine with new timing gears and It was a pretty sweet little car after that.

I've never been a fan of switching brands of oil though. It seems that the only engines I ever had trouble with internal wise were ones that had had different brands of oil put in them for one reason or another rather than sticking with one.

 

I don’t know about detergent oil in a old non detergent oil engine. but I have run a quart kerosene to clean it out a curdled up engine and plugged the screen up, ended up pulling the pan to clean it out.

 

I used to build a minimum of 12 flatheads a year and often more. I used to hear people brag about using "only non-detergent" oil in older motors, even one that they had rebuild.. almost without exception, every engine I pulled down to rebuild that had been running non-detergent oil was heavily coated with sludge and crud. Some so bad with it that they made glue and tapioca pudding look like clear drinking water. What a stubborn mess to clean out of everything inside. When I rebuilt the engine, gave strick instructions to the owner to use only the finest high detergent oil, and change it regularly based on months of use if the car wasn't driven often. How did it work? Well, in the mid 70's a group of early Ford club members drove as a group of 15, to Estes Park, Colorado for a national meet. Over 1300 miles each way and in July. Eleven had engine problems related to oil, some slight and some severe. The 4 that I built made the trip with ease. Just stark reality.

 

They did not have the quality oil of today’s standards back in “the old days” so I think if an engine was run for a long time with non detergent oil and the interior condition was unknown it was probably gummed up so I could see keeping with a non detergent, but on an engine you know is clean inside or has been running a detergent oil on the past why would you ever put a non detergent oil in?

 

so why do they make nd oil?

 

To put in air compressors and the old regular and pump-type oil cans.

 

271 members of my family died in an in an SAE-30 to 10W-30 changeout related engine oil explosion.

It leveled nine city blocks.

Oh, wait, no, that never happened.

Pictures or video, or it never happened. Any assertion that cannot be backed by quantifiable evidence can justly, automatically be considered false.

 

What happens when you put detergent into a motor that has lived its life on non-detergent, is It loosens up the dirt stuck all over the motor, and once its back circulating thru the system it will embed itself into the soft metals and start to act like sand paper on the hard parts. Typically, wrist pin bushings, or the piston itself, and next the rod and mains will be sand paper too. An oil filter would certainly help, but frequent oil changes are a must if you plan to change over to detergent oil on an old motor until it gets cleaned out

 

I’ll give you my story. I ran non detergent oil in my old Chevy 6’s because I didn’t have much money and Savon Drugs sold it for $.10 a can in 1960. My first V8’s starting in 63 all got detergent oil.
Every engine I built specifically to race all were broke in with ND 30 from 1974 up into the 90’s when I stopped. None ever had hydraulic lifters. The run time was 20-30 minutes and drained hot. I can’t remember where or when I read or heard it but in was probably in the mid 60’s. Funny I only hurt 1 GMC block in 48 years of racing them and oil wasn’t the problem. Now they all get Mobil 1 from the start.

 

I thought the whole story hinged on older engines not having oil filters - if you changed to detergent oil, there was no filter to collect any sludge that had been loosened up.

 

From what I understand there is an element of truth to this story, based on my father and my automotive machine shops experience.

The issue is the detergent oil breaks up the sludge that has builds up inside an engine that builds up in an engine that has only run non detergent oil.

The as sludge breaks up it can block up the oil pick up and oil passages, and that is what causes engine failure.

 

I’d always heard engines would become “leakers”.
About two years ago I went to our 3 local parts store looking for some ND oil, figured it would be cheaper. Wasn’t stocked. Funny thing is I found it at a grocery store and it was as expensive as regular 30wt was.
I was trying to save a buck or two getting an old generator running with a Wisconsin engine I didn’t know anything about.
It got 30wt Valvoline instead.

 

Now to say this is going to happen everyone uses detergent oil in an engine that has only used non detergent oil is a matter of debate.

 

Detergent oil isn't what the name implies. The additives allow combustion byproducts and soot to remain suspended small and liquid enough to be filtered. It doesn't "wash" anything. Any fresh oil, ND or not, will eventually soften the byproducts that have gathered over time in trapping areas of any engine. The heavy sludge being spoken of probably forms more from being stored, never started, and anything solid that is heavier than oil settles. Heat will cook the oil in places and create more soot/solids and what seems like tar (we've all seen it). The old straight wt ND oils were no good at trapping and managing oil related combustion impurities and by themselves just aid the build up into eventual solids. I've come to learn there is no magic bullet available in an oil can (bottle) these days. Nothing trumps good ring seal and proper clearance in moving parts, and managing crankcase gasses has a profound effect on internal "cleansing" of all those parts flopping around in there.

 

I agree with HIGHLANDER.

Ben

 

One thing for sure…hydraulic lifters did not like non-detergent oil…

 

Not quite on topic, but in 1960 I went to work for a guy with a junk yard. He had a '53 Buick he bought new. He had never changed the oil and it still ran. Everything under the hood was black.

 

Back in 1963, my oldest Brother bought a 51 Packard Ht, with a 327 straight eight, for a $100.00. Gas was 25 cents, and bulk oil was 45 cents a gallon. It held 9 quarts, and many times I watched him buy $1.00 worth of regular, and walk over to a rack that held oil in gallon glass jugs, take one, and pour in the whole thing.

 

Hello,
Well that sounds very familiar... my 1940 Flathead powered Ford Sedan Delivery used up oil like it was free. But, no leaks, drips on the concrete driveway or any kind of smoke coming from the exhaust. So, what was it? The motor was clean as I could get it and it stayed that way from the time I bought it to the day i sold it 5 years later.

The oil problem was checked on by two expert Flathead mechanics and they both said a total rebuild would stop the oil usage. But they were stumped as to what made the flathead motor use so much oil. It used to be a Valvoline can once a week. Then it got worse, but still no drips or smoke. Just miles of fun activities on our teenage surf adventures. I could not afford a total rebuild as it would cost money I did not have. Plus, I would be without a car for weeks or how ever long it would take.

So, it was out of the picture and I visited regularly, the local no name gas station for a couple gallons of gas to get to school and a couple of gallons OF RECLAIMED OIL in a steel container, to take care of the oil weirdness. The oil was reclaimed and once I bought the steel gallon cans, I could now pump out my own gallon into those containers. Who care if it was detergent or non detergent. It looked greenish brown going in and looked the same many miles later on an oil dipstick check, just a little lower than when I started the road trip.

It worked and we had thousands of miles of wonderful road trips from below the Baja, Mexico surf spots to the Northern Santa Barbara surf spots for years depending on the swell and weather conditions. plus, the daily drive to high school and its activities...

Jnaki

After I sold the flathead sedan delivery, I saw it parked in front of a surf shop in Huntington Beach. It was still running with the new owner and he was a happy guy. Of course, he was a well known braggart and was telling all who would listen that this sedan delivery was rare and how he built it to be a cool hot rod.

Yea, right... Right down to the type of oil needed to keep it running and why... As part of the sale, I told him about the oil usage. He just said it was a part of owning a hot rod. YRMV

 

Worked in a gas station in '63. A guy with a '54 Chevy came in every couple days and got a quart of reclaimed bulk oil for about 15 cents. The oil in that car always looked brand new.

 

I read the problems with the Y block Ford were partially due to owners ignoring Fords instructions to use detergent oil and stubborn owners using regular oil because it was cheaper.. Don't forget old oil change intervals were at 1,000 miles (57 dodge) for example back then . I remember the neighbor down the street had an Olds 98, we popped off a valve cover and the sludge was the exact shape of the valve cover like a Jello mold...lol

 

Unless one is my age , you probably would not BELIEVE the sludge in cars in the early '50s. Especially cars in which certain oil from the Keystone state was used.

Ben

 

Thank you for all of the great responses! It makes sense how detergent oil could loosen up all the sludge in the engine and clog the pickup tube or screen. I’ve never had good enough luck to take an old engine and try and start it up without pulling the oil pan. The 223 I’m my 1955 Customline had 1-1/2” of sludge and lead in the bottom of the pan when we pulled it. Thanks for the stories and information.