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40W oil causing wear problems over 30w?
Subject: 40W oil causing wear problems over 30w?
From: Bruce in Alaska (LaBomba182) wrote: OK, so I'm sitting around with the captain and his engineer friend on the new boat I'm project managing/co-captaining and we are trying to work out how to run the same weight oil in the engines, gensets and trannys so we only have to fill the clean oil tank with one weight oil and not carry any extra buckets of different weight oils with us. The CAT engines and ZF trannys can use 40W oil as per their specs but the Northern Lights gensets only recommend up to 30W oil. The CATs could run 30W but only at 86 deg. ambient air temps. We will certainly be seeing higher temps than that. I tell the capt. and eng. that based on the ambient air temps we will be seeing even with the Delta-T fans that if it weren't for a warranty issue I wouldn't hesitate to use 40W oil in the gensets. The capt. and eng. disagree. They start saying that running a heavier weight oil could cause wear problems and make the engine work harder over time. And as an example they compare it to what can happen if you use a heavy weight oil in a high revving street/race car. I point out that this is a diesel not a high revving street/race engine. They back off that point a bit but we still go round and round in a civil fashion. In the end we will end up putting 15-40W oil in the tank for the engines and gensets (as per specs) and keeping some 40W in bottles for the trannys. But other than the warranty concerns, I'm I missing something here? Would using 40W over 30W in the gensets with of course changing it at the proper number of hours and making sure that the ambient temps never get low really cause any long term problems? Capt. Bill If you call Alaska Diesel, and check with the Service Manager on spec's for the Northern Lights Gensets, they will tell you that Delo 400 15W40 is also spec'd for those engines. CAT will also spec Delo 400 15W40 for most of their engines produced in the last 15 years. We use it "Exclusivly" in out CAT Powerhouse that routinely runs 2.2 Megawatts during the summers, and I switched to Delo 400 15W40, for my twin 20Kw Northern Lights Gensets, on advice from the Factory Rep that came thru here a few years back. Thanks, I saw that in the eng. and genset manuals and that's what we will end up doing. Filling the clean oil tank with 15-40W and keeping 40W in bottles and/or pails for the trannys. Based on this I still can't see how straight 40W would hurt the gensets in any way. As long as the ambient temps stay high. Hell, multi weight oils start out at their low number and get more viscous as their temp rises. Capt. Bill |
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