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Pro Long oil additive...Atention Les


MPH

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Hey Les, since you mix oil for a living could I bug you for your opion on Pro Long even though its work related on your off time..Thanks....MPH
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I have not worked with lube oils for almost 20 years now. currently I develop polyols for polyurethane production, which are oils but not for lubrication. I have never been an advocate of oil or fuel additives under normal conditions, as a general rule, they are a waste of money. Using the latest additive package oil(SJ) and changing oil often is the best procedure, esp with a small engine that has no oil filter, this means two or three times a mowing season. Some exceptions may be as follows: -Slick 50, the teflon may have some merit -When it gets really cold, use fuel line antifreeze. I prefer Isopropyl Alcohol, altough methanol is cheaper and works well. Gasahol(ethanol blended unleaded) is good, but when it gets below zero, I like to have some insurance. For diesel fuel anti-gel, ask some truckers what is currently the best. Many firms tend to change their formulations over time in order to save money. -The stop-leak products are a good idea and may be able to help keep your driveway clean -I will also add a fuel injection cleaner occasionally, I make my own with chemicals off the shelf. -Also I do buy octane booster for the Caddillac, it really makes the old Northstar hum, and almost pays for itself too!
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I was always sceptical about the oil additives, but back in 93' I thought I'd try Duralube for the heck of it. Put it in a new 14 hp Kohler single everytime I changed the oil. Took the head off last year at 1000hrs for de carboning. WoW! i could still clearly see the factory hone marks in the upper end of the cylinder. It still does not use any oil. Maybe there is something to these additives????????????????????????/ Sam
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Kent, Regarding ALL oil additives, I'm neither for 'em or agin 'em. Don't know enough about 'em to form an opinion. Seems like the "experts" can't agree either.
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I became a believer in Slick 50 after a watched a Briggs lawn mower engine run for over 4 hours without a drain plug -- it was being demonstrated at a mall and was still running fine when I left....
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I use Mobile 1 in my cars and new Sovereign. Would have never believed synthetic oil made a difference until I put Mobile 1 in my daughter's 85 Toyota van (don't remember why I tried it) with around 125 to 140k miles on it. When she came back home from school she wanted to know what I had done to her engine. Said it ran quieter and cooler and it did. The only thing I can figure is that Mobile 1 has less shear resistance than standard motor oil since theoretically the moving parts are separated by an oil film and the relative velocity between the film and the parts is zero on each side of the film. My 2 cents worth. Roy
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I wouldn't try running my engine with out oil and that stuff in it. Who runs there engine without oil? It doesn't prove anything. They dont test it over long term effects.
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Ben, I certainly wasn't suggesting that anyone try running an engine without oil. But, it showed me that Slick 50 can provide enough "residual lubrication" so that an engine can run for hours without oil, and still not lock up or overheat. On a pressure lubricated system like your car, or the new twin Kohlers and Briggs with oil filters, the majority of wear occurs upon startup and prior to oil pressure building throughout the system. Pressure lubed engines can develop "rod knock" in a matter of minutes without oil, or worse yet seize or spin a main bearing. I'm not sure how sigificant this is on the old "splash-lubricated" ones like the cast-iron Briggs, but it sure makes me feel much better on hillsides and slopes where I may temporarily lose lubrication when the oil all drains to one side of the pan and can't be splashed up.... I've also used it on car engines to dramatically quieten down worn hydraulic lifters, for example. I treated my F-150 300ci six with it, and it still wasn't using any oil and ran fine at almost 150,000 miles when I got tired of paying for other repairs, such as $1500 rear ends, $700 clutch replacements, $1300 front-end rebuilds, etc. You can bet I treated my Dodge Ram that I replaced it with at the 15,000 mile point (you need to break them in first). It's cheap insurance, in my mind.... I'm not trying to sell it, but I certainly buy and use it. Note also that they don't sell it as a permanent fix, but recommend another treatment every 50,000 miles. Compared to the money I've spent on regular oil and oil filters in 50,000 miles, another $15 or so for Slick 50 is not a show-stopper. Kent
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Yet[A href='http://www.repairfaq.org/filipg/AUTO/F_Slick_50.html']http://www.repairfaq.org/filipg/AUTO/F_Slick_50.html[/a]
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Dutch, I fully understand the conflicting views. Quoting from the first report: In defense of Slick 50, tests done on a Chevy 6 cylinder engine by the University of Utah Engineering Experiment Station found that after treatment with the PTFE additive the test engine's friction was reduced by 13.1 percent, the output horsepower increased from 5.3 percent to 8.1 percent, and fuel economy improved as well. Unfortunately, the same tests concluded that "There was a pressure drop across the oil filter resulting from possible clogging of small passageways." Oil analysis showed that iron contamination doubled after the treatment, indicating that engine wear increased (Rau). ____________________ IMO, the negative in the paragraph above would not apply in a splash-lubed engine. And, look at the FTC ruling in the same report: ______________ In fact, the FTC said, "most automobile engines are adequately protected from wear at start-up when they use motor oil as recommended in the owner's manual. Moreover, it is uncommon for engines to experience premature failure caused by wear, whether they have been treated with Slick 50 or not." _______________________________ 1) What do they mean by premature failure? Is this opposed to "mature failure" -- what do they deem as a normal service life of an engine? 2) This in NO way addresses the claim of extending the service life of that engine, only in avoiding premature failure. Are we talking "accidental death" or "life" insurance? In my mind, these aren't the same.... 8o) Kent
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Having been a "knee-dragger" in a former life (raced superbikes for a while) I did a fair amount of research on additives and oils. The only non-oil product that any race professional race shops use is moly to coat engine and transmission parts. That is not done by using a special oil and just running the engine. It is done by disassembling the engine and applying the moly coating, typically by heating parts up to about 400 degrees or so (no problem for steel parts) and then quenching them in a tub of moly. It makes a dramatic difference with how nicely bikes shift and does help the crank some too. As stated before, Dupont themselves say using teflon in oil has no proven effect on engine life, and I'd think it would just clog up oil filters that are designed to remove particulate matter from the oil supply.[A href='http://www.wheatfarm.com']http://www.wheatfarm.com[/a]
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After working for more than 20 years in the chemical industry, from mixing and formulating retail automotive products, to dealing with hugh natural gas engine oils and coolants, working with companies with several million dollars in their maintenance budgets and hundreds of engines, hearing and reading a lot of bull over the years, I can safely say that all of these so-called miracle oil additives are pure bunk!
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Take a look at this link. I have used this in my truck and both full size and garden tractor engines. The truck has 200 K with no oil burning yet. Have also used it to "rescue" an old twin cylinder Briggs that sounded like it was ready to self-destruct, but I didn't feel was worth the effort of a rebuild. It sounded a lot quiter and ran smoother within a few minutes of using this stuff. That was several years ago and I still use that motor regularly. [A href='http://www.powerupnz.co.nz/']http://www.powerupnz.co.nz/[/a]
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Another oil point! with two stroke engines, be careful not to add too much oil to the gas! People think that they are helping their chain saw or trimmer by adding extra oil to the fuel. The fact is that it is just the opposite, oil burns hotter than gas and can cause overheating problems, like scored pistons.
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I thought you might like to know the trick to make an engine run for a time without lube oil. You get the engine hot, drain out part of the oil, then add used cooking oil, run the engine for awhile. As the cooking oil cools it becomes quite visious and will stick to the engine parts. You can then drain the oil, and the engine will run well(esp. an air cooled engine) for several hours until the cooking oil gets oxidized to the point where it becomes plastic. At that point you will begin to get metal-to-metal contact and the engine will soon fail. The greasiest, yuckiest, leftover resteraunt grease seems to work the best, although an extremely high vis petroleum oil would work too. The people selling these oil additives are showmen, out to make a buck. True, there may be valid science behind what they are selling, this is how they comply with truth in advertising laws. For instance Castor oil does exhibit superior lubrication properties at higher temps as compared to petroleum, but your engine is designed not to get that hot. Plus the combustion by-products(which I call dirt) will render the miricle additive inert anyway. These are advertising gimmicks. Spend your money wisely, change oil and filter more often, dont give your money to the snake oil salesman.
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Les, Thanks for de-bunking the showmanship. But, you earlier showed some undecidedness on Slick 50... What's your take on PTFE? I value your views... Kent
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In theory, Slick 50 is a great idea, give your engine parts a molecular film. I have done much work with corrossion inhibitors in glycol/water solutions. Using phosphates to give a molecular coating on ferrous metal parts, adding sodium silicate for aluminum parts, mercapatan for other non-ferrous metals, you can greatly improve corrossion resistance, I have done a lot of "coupon" tests over the years and have proven the effectivness of corrossion inhibitors in various types of antifreeze. Engine oils are another matter, engine oils are covalent compounds, corrossion and abrasion resistance is entirely different chemistry, of which I have no experience. I do not know teflon chemistry, but I have had tons of experience using teflon materials in chemical operations. Teflon is a wonderful material, offers chemical corrossion resistance second to none. Can it form a molecular bond with ferrous metal???? I dont know. My experience is that it does not stand up well to high temps and stands up to abrasion even less well. But there are a whole family of Teflon materials, the Slick 50 additive may indeed work very well, I cant say. My non-scientific opinion is that it may work in a relatively clean engine, or it may not. I can say that it didnt do much for the 1992 Ford Crown Victoria I had. I put in Slick 50 at 125,000 miles and the car was putting out a lot of blue smoke by 150,000. And I change oil/filter religiously every 3000 miles. But.....there is the curse! It seems that whenever I get near a Ford car they break down. GM cars seem to love me, for instance, I had a 1987 Buick Century, I put 135,000 miles on it, gave it to my wife, who ran it up to 177,000 miles, then my daughter got it as her first car, she ran it up to 188,000, by then it was so rusted that you could see the road through the floorboards, so I sold it for $400 in March of 1988, as of a week ago last Wenesday, that same car was out delivering pizzas! That car never saw any kind of oil additive when I had it, and you can be very certain that the guy did NOT put a differnt engine in a $400 car. Now, heres the rub! If I had perchanced to use Slick 50 in the Buick, rather than the Ford, then I would be sitting here telling you how great Slick 50 is, wouldnt I? AND THATS HOW ALL THIS CRAP GETS STARTED!!!!! Dont use oil additives! They do more harm than good!
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Reply 19 was me, lost my internet connection and it logged me back in as guest and I didnt realize what happened. Can I tell a story or what??? Gosh, I did use some of the crap(Shakespeare) that I had to learn in high school!!! i.e "heres the rub" and "perchanced" There are some dead nuns that I should apologize to, right now!!
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Ok I'll jump in here. I've come to using prolong or duralube. I just do. I recently put some duralube in my homelite and soveriegn. about a half pint per crankcase.That left me a pint for my trusty oil can. I own a peice a machinery with a 20 foot long steel on steel slide that i regularly oil with 10-30 or 90 gear lube. Also used various greases. Lately I had problems with galling of the slide. Well I had duralube in my can so thats what it got. WOW. Never has this baby slid like this. Very smooth with no galling of the steel. The only galling I've seen in an engine is spun bearings. So mabey its use will guard against One thing for sure, duralube is not just like sj engine oil.
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I don't use any oil additive,,never have,never will,and I feel we do MORE than the average homeowner does with all of our machines.They are used every day of the week from just towing wagons around the yard to pulling 3.000 lb. sleds tractor pulling. [Now THERE is a test!.]I prefer Mobil SAE 30 or Mobil 10W-40.If oil is regularly changed problems are less frequent. IMO.
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