50 w synthetic transmission oil

[lowspeedlife]

Here's the latest from "old style listers" .
 "we are no longer fitting engines with oil pumps due to the new roller bearing design within the engines crankcase"
 "only use synthetic 50 weight transmission oil in all 2009 engines"
            wad du ya thank bout dat ?
http://www.oldstylelisters.com/oil_pumps.html

        scott r.

[Stan]

He's still got his dipper bass acwards. 
Stan

[lowspeedlife]

yes Stan, he certainly does. how did I know you would notice that?   

[Wizard]

50 weight transmissison fluid?  Eeeh.  Heavy stuff when cold and wrong stuff too, no stuff to take care of combustion byproducts in the addative package that engine oil does.

Cheers, Wizard

[Stan]

Remember when (I think it was Rockeboy) tried changing his dipper around when he had his clear plexiglass cover on the crankcase?  He reported a veritable tornado of oil flying around and it started leaking out of every orifice like a sieve?
Stan

[lowspeedlife]

He refered to it looking like "taffy" slinging around in there.

I thought GM was nuts back in the mid 80's when they told us to put 15-40w motor oil in S-10 blazer/pick up 4WD transmissions,  in retrospect, as long as the seals were able to handle the motor oil this was acceptable, but 50 W tranz oil? thats just crazy. but wait, the warranty says it all, if you have an engine failure you MUST return your engine for warranty inspection.  lol.

            scott r.

[adhall]

And just what in the heck is a "synthetic transmission" anyway??? 

Best regards,
Andy Hall

[nobby]

Re stiff oil at low temps.
Hold on a sec note they are specifying Synthetic in some ways the straight weight designation is misleading for a synth it will still have adequate flow at low temps that is the nature of synths.

The issue at hand here is really the removing of the oil pump, WHY?  To be honest I am not really worried about lube oil specs regular engine oil works fine in a splash lubrication set up so we can somewhat ignore that.  Problem here is removing the pump from a system that was designed for it and the fact that the oil pump engine sumps are not designed for splash lubrication only.  You are going to have maintain oil level so that it is not irretrievably lost to the lower sump this as I understand it would mean above the weir without being to high.  Now looking at the CS diagrams the fill is lower than the weir top, is this how the Roids are set up or is there a fill in the covers too? So an immediate issue here.  

I am sure we can all summise various conversations that gave rise to the idea, stuff like with the rollers and synth oils the pump is no longer necessary and what if the external oil feed pipe or pump develops a major leak etc.  The well proven original design does not need re-inventing if you ask me.  

My favourite movie phrase is most applicable here 'Because it is a fine line between clever and stupid'.    

Cheers
Nobby

[oliver90owner]

Nobby,

OSL 'oids probably have no weir plate for controlled level for the splash lube.  They probably dip direct into the main sump oil.  So much more dependent on regular oil top-up than a proper Lister

Probably the worst of everything.  Dipper is prolly that way to try to stir the oil.  Hot will stay on top, cold will stay at bottom of sump with no oil pump circulation.  If it was the correct way round only the top surface of oil would be splashed around the engine.  Just guessing.

And that is supposed to be progress?  Not in my book.

Regards, RAB

[nobby]

Interesting so there is in effect no weir and the sump is in effect common with oil needing to be high anyway.  Well that explains the thought process that if you believe splash only is adequate then the oil pump could be considered redundant.

Hmm firstly to follow on from your thinking RAB if this were to be splash only I would suggest that the sump be altered as part of the modification to be shallow so there is not the mass of unused cold oil at the bottom.

Secoundly this walks in to a whole discussion of is 'splash only' adequate for these engines, someone will no doubt point out that there are Roids out there without the pump from the start. 

I would approach this by somewhat ignoring the whole splash only discussion and look at the base logic of removing a part from an engine that it came with.  Most likely reasoning for this:
One more part to wear out and need replacement, are the pumps that expensive!?
Pump or pipe failure causing major oil loss and subsequent seizure.  Well in this case rather than remove the pump I would suggest the following that quite frankly I have been thinking is a good idea for most users anyway in the light of the somewhat unattended nature of generator operation.  Install a simple low oil level and and high water temp alarm system.  To be quite honest even if you pulled the pump I would still suggest the low oil level sensor and as RAB pointed out oil level in this set up needs more regular checking so low oil becomes more of an issue anyway.  Not a big fan of automatic shutdown but you could also go one step further and have that if you so wished.

Now as to there using a 50W Trans Synth.  I am wondering if they are seeing a need for a heavier weight oil, if there is good splash and the big end and mains are being adequately fed then I see no need for a 50W?  Are they trying to follow a logic of non-detergent in non-filtered engine hence using a trans oil rather than engine oil, this one falls flat though as I understand it Synths have detergents that occur naturally in the oil as part of the production process before you even add anything.

Bottom line it was fine as it was as I see it and re-inventing the wheel was not necessary here.  More to the point as a potential purchaser the supplier really needs to provide reasoning and explanation along with the stated modification to give it any form of validity.

Cheers
Nobby

[Tom]

This is probably just more of slick willies baloney. He is just taking a standard TRB indian roid and hyping it. In the non-oil pumped roids the sump is fairly broad and shallow. The dipper goes with in 1/2 in of the bottom of the V shaped sump so you'd have to really neglect the oil level to cause some damage. One of the benefits of this design change is that there is a functional dip stick (no not me  ) that will give a good reading of the oil level. In practice I've seen no detectable drop in oil level between changes. I'm currently running the inexpensive Wal-Mart 10-40 diesel tractor oil which does make it quite a bit easier to crank when cold. We are now approaching 650 hours on the engine. The last half are hard hours as the inverters are pulling 3125 watts for battery charging.

[nobby]

Ah hah, so in a true non oil pump Roid the sump is shallow as I would of expected for a splash lube only engine.  Thanks Tom.  Good to hear that you are not experiencing oil loss issues.

Cheers
Nobby