Engine oils for farm equipment...?

[Gary - K7GLD]

Over in another thread, a suggestion was made concerning oils sold for farm/harvester use - sorta got me thinking... . Lots of harvesters and farm equipment use varaitions of the same engines we do - and operate under absolutely horrid conditions - heat, extremely dusty, heavy loads, etc... Is there any "special" oil recommended for that type of service that might be a better choice than what we use for "ordinary" service?



OR, do the Farm engines rely purely on more frequent changes and better filtering for reasonable engine life?

 

[benhall]

Oil

Gary,



Their is an oil brand called Northland that comes from Waterloo, IA. I'm not sure what the availability of it is the further away from there you are. I tried doing a search on AOL, but they don't have anything. You may want to check with the local impliment dealers about this brand. Besides Rotella, this would be one of the only brands of oils that my CTD will see.



Ben

 

[illflem]

The accepted rule of thumb is that one engine hour equals 50 miles. I follow the owners manual's service interval, 200-250 hrs on oil/filter changes or about 10,000 miles. I have two tractors that have broke the million mile mark, all on Wix filters and Delo 15w-40, the only oil I use. I highly doubt any of the JD, IH, etc oils/filters are any better. There is no A or B service schedule with tractors, just one. Diesel engines in tractors are run more like a diesel is designed to run, start it maybe twice a day and run it for several hours at time all at one rpm, not like a pickup that may get started several times a day, often never warming up with the rpms up and down all the time. I would say that a pickup is run in more horrid conditions than most tractors just because of this. Oil filtration is the same but most tractors have an much better air filtrating system with an air filter that is designed to be cleaned several times before replacing. This is done only when the clean filter light or filter minder says it's time, to do otherwise is counter productive. Most tractors have an non cleanable inner safety air filter that rarely collects anything unless a filter fails or a person gets messy while servicing. The inner filter is good for at least 10 main filter changes before replacement. Most tractor all filters also use centrifugal force to throw most of the dust away from the filter. Most tractors have screening and seals to keep the big stuff out of the air intake and coolers. Other than that most everything else is the same.



Had to use the word most a lot here because there are cheapo and homeowner type tractors out there that aren't designed as far as filtration as most gassers.

 

[swalls]

Fools plunge in where angels fear to tread..

... and I try not to get overly involved in oil and filter threads. OH well. . here's my take. You probably all know that the B & C engines were started off as a joint venture between Case Corporation and Cummins, so your local Case dealer probably has had a lot of experience with some versions of the 5. 9L engine. Case in particular has spent a lot of money on development of premium engine oils. The oil I recommended to the guy in Moab, Utah was either Case-IH #1 engine oil or John Deere Plus 50 engine oil. Having attended many engine oil and filter seminars as a Case-IH service manager, I run the #1 15-40 and Fleetguard filters in my own Dodge. Both of these oils are premium-quality oils which are specifically designed for 250-hour (equivalent of 12,500 miles) interval use in off-highway diesel engines. Based on the base stock and additive package specs, both of these oils are in the top tier of premium (non-synth) oils, which would also include such expensive oils as Delo 300 and Shell Rimula. The lower tier of good on-highway & less expensive oils would include Delo 400, Ursa Super Plus, Rotella T, and Farmland Circle; these are good on-highway oils but their additive package is NOT up to par with the first list. So Gary you might see some benefits from running a top-tier oil in terms of longer wear in the rotating group, turbocharger, etc. Everybody has heard stories about the guy who runs Walmart filters and Supertech oil and still gets a zillion miles out of his engine without the valve cover even being removed; I realize these things actually do happen. For my money, I'll spend it up front on the best product I can pour in that filler cap, short of the ridiculous cost of the synthetics. I am not trying to dispute synthetics here; I just want to mention that these two are very good oils with fairly good availability which CTD owners can use with confidence that they are not running second-rate products in their Cummins engines.

An educational link from a Schaeffer oil dealerBob the Oil Guy

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

Terrific oil info above - and I especially appreciate the comment relative to the use of additive packages in the agricultural/industrial engines as compared to the more tightly EPA regulated road vehicles... I have been somewhat concerned over the EPA mandated reductions in traditional additive packages in some of the new oils on the market - and even stricter controls and additive package reductions still on the horizon - that is supposedly one reason Amsoil avoids SAE certification, since they claim to be more interested in maintaining reduced wear in their lubes than meeting specs they know will reduce that characteristic in their products...



Perhaps switching to the top grade stuff you point to above is one way to avoid anti-wear reductions in SAE oil certification the EPA is trying to shove off on us...



The oil website pointer above is a real eye-opener as well - especially the oil analysis results posted on new. unused oil right outta the bottle...

 

[Cooker]

Here is a link to Plus 50 right out of the bottle:



http://theoildrop.server101.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=11;t=000010



The additive package doesn't look that much better to me. I'm not saying it is a bad oil, but in my opinion it is no better than Rotella T, Delo 400, or Delvac 1300.



JD sure does a fantastic job of marketing this oil though.



As for their 0w40, there is no way I would run this for extended periods. Their HT/HS is not over 4. 0 (which is hard for me to believe being a 40 weight oil) which indicates to me this oil has more of a tendancy to shear than some others, and will not hold up all that well in extended drain applications.



Gary,

As far as meeting the restrictions, the Case IH #1 oil is API licensed as a CI-4 so it has met all the other critera of an API oil, but both the JD oil are not licensed.

 

[illflem]

JD sure does a fantastic job of marketing this oil though.

Just like they claim that the boots they sell will last twice as long as the competition. Must be because of JD logo on the exact same Wolverine boots that you can buy elsewhere for half the price. Like my JD parts man says, "paint it green and charge three times more for it. "

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

What sorta puzzled me in the pointer above, analysis of NEW, unused oil was higher in aluminum, iron and silicon, than what I usually show on USED oil after 7000 miles - tho admittedly, my analysis was with a bypass filter installed - but still...

 

[Sled Puller]

A few friends run nothing but IH oil in their PSDs. I ask them, who makes it for IH? Nobody knows. Paint it red and...



We have run Wolfs Head 15-40 (low grade of Pennzoil)In the 1973 Oliver, for 125,000 miles, according to Illfelms formula. Changing once a year, if lucky, and sitting for long periods.

The pan was removed for some service work to the transmission(longggg story) and the crankcase was immaculate. Oil samples were great.



I went ahead and flushed, Amsoiled it. I'm a madman!

 

[mark64]

My brother sells Northland oil and that's all we use in our farm equipment. These motors are put under alot more stress and heat than I could ever put to my pickup.

My brother claims Northland is who makes John Deere's oil. Makes sense since they both are out of waterloo, IA.

 

[yogibear]

12 yrs. ago I was on the board of directors of our local co-op, on one of our trips to Farmland Industries in KC, we visited their refinery and they were bottling John Deer's oil, they said it was blended to JD's spec's.



Larry

 

[swalls]

Case-IH oil

Case oil is made by Viscosity Oil Company... this small company was bought by Pennzoil in the early 90's, but continues to supply lubricants to Case. Viscosity was contracted by International Harvester in the late 60's to develop a line of oil for their new DT466 engine series. and hydraulic/transmission fluid for their farm equipment. Their goal was to build an engine oil on which they could run a DT466 at full power for 3000 hours and not have it crater... oops, without changing the engine oil They cratered many of them before they achieved that goal. Not that IH or anybody else recommends or implies in any way that you can exceed the recommended oil change interval It was just a way of developing an oil that would stand up to the typical abuse and lack of maintenance that farm equipment is subjected to... still is to this day; I have seen 8. 3L engines in dairy tractors that the dairy forgot to change the engine oil for the last 600 hours. I kinda shudder when we pull an oil sample with 600 hours, but amazingly enough other than particle count and dirt, the Case oil still was "serviceable; oil and filter change recommended soon. "

(D-ooh!) Am I saying it is the best oil on the market--absolutely not; I'm sure somebody else makes an oil with a better package, better specs, etc. . I am saying it is plenty good enough for the CTD and that's what I run in mine. With a Fleetguard filter, of course And no it's not painted red, and marked up 3 times; I think it is one of the better values on the market; definitely cheaper than Shell Rimula or Delo 300.

 

[Sled Puller]

Seems like the small, independant oil companies are alive and well!

 

[David Oxland]

You're right there illflem; Pickups run under some of the most difficult conditions. Lots of cold starts, short runs, unloaded miles, abusive idling, moisture.

While the tractor environment is outwardly difficult they are prepared for it and as you say lots of them get up and run for multi hours at a reasonable RPM with varying loads. Jacket water and combustion temps are more likely to be up where they belong. Air is properly filtered as can be witnessed by sampling and looking in the intake manifold.

Lots of pickups have a tough life; particularly the ones with oversized and therefore under-worked engines like ours.

 

[Blakers]

During a lot of the off-season when there's not a lot of heavy tillage and harvesting going on, much of a farm tractor's life is spent idling and doing minimal jobs where the engine hardly gets warm. Plowing snow out of the barnyard and driveway or spreading manure. Or hauling around some round bales from the field. This stuff never gets them up to temperature on a cold day.



This is also true of backhoe and front end loaders - they might load a truck, sit for an hour, load another truck, sit... and so forth.



Just some points... not that them mean anything.



Blake

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

Anyone suggesting farm equipment usually sees better service and treatment than the typical road vehicle sure must be around a lot different farms than *I* am...

 

[Duane George]

farm oil

been farming all my life. i use bp oil 15w40 in all of my equipment including my truck and even the lawn mower. haven't had an engine failure due to oil. i used this oil year round.



fwiw



Duane