Looking for an oil thread/info

[MoJ]

Looking through this forum and the 70 series forum I was hoping to find a good oil type discussion. It looks like there's more traffic here. I found a few bits and pieces here and there but many revolved around change intervals and filter types. Am I missing it?

Basically I've settled on Shell Rotella dyno - just trying to figure out what the
3B likes best as far as weight/viscosity. It gets cold here but rarely below 10F and very rarely below 0F. Average winter temp is likely closer to 40F. Summers can reach the upper 90's. If I'm not asking too much I'd like to go with one oil year around as I really don't drive this thing often enough to justify changing oil more than once a year.

Experiences?

 

[wesintl]

I ran 15-40w rotella in va and it was fine year round even in the winter where temps didn't fall that deep. I think you would be fine with rotella dyno year round.

I pretty much run rotella t (blue bottle) 5w-40 year round in colorado and haven't had any issues from -20F to 110F.

Even if I don't put on the miles I stll change the oil every 6 mos...

 

[Stone]

Bob is the oil guy is an awesome online resource that talks nothing but oil. In fact, I think I'm going to add his link to our FAQ.

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/

Another related subject would be good oil filter choices. And the one site that I've found that goes into it quite a bit is this one that compares many different brands in the PH8A size:

http://minimopar.knizefamily.net/oilfilterstudy.html

I think I'll add that to our FAQ also.

As far as what I've been using on my 13B-T...I've also used Shell Rotella 15W40 dino oil, as well as the cheapest Wal*Mart 15W40 dino diesel oil. There's discussion in the Bob is the Oil Guy website where they do lots of virgin oil analysis as well as used oil analysis, and some of the generic brand diesel oils have come out being as good as the name brand stuff...which would make sense since they are being packaged by the big name brand oil comanies for large department store chains like Wal*Mart and Superstore.

Recently, I've been running a full synthetic, the Esso XD3 0W40. The winters here are fairly mild (raining right now), but I have found that synthetic oil circulates through the top of the engine much faster during startup, and results in a quiter running engine overall. Even though synthetics have a reputation of being on the "thin" side, I have found that my oil pressure gauge has been reading similar to when I had my dino oil in there, even when the engine is hot on mild days. I think I might try synthetic all year round this year and see what happens. My change intervals with the synthetic will be at least 10,000 kms, if not more. I think Esso is called Exxon in the USA, but I could be mistaken.

The oil filter that I always use is the NAPA Gold/Wix filter. It would be the same size on your 3B, which is the 1515 (PH8A equivalent). Inexpensive at NAPA, and as you will see on that online study, one of the better ones on the market.