- 2 days ago
Find us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/cw/CycleWorldPodcast
Oil seems to be endlessly fascinating to gearheads, so Technical Editor Kevin Cameron and Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer get back into the advantages of synthetic and conventional oils, how engines are lubricated and cooled, and a whole lot more. Learn about "the wedge" and maybe that modern vehicles are "liars"?
Find us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/cw/CycleWorldPodcast
Become a Channel Partner: https://octanemedia.co/home/become-an-advertiser/
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6CLI74xvMBFLDOC1tQaCOQ
Read more from Cycle World: https://www.cycleworld.com/
Buy Cycle World Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/cycleworld
Oil seems to be endlessly fascinating to gearheads, so Technical Editor Kevin Cameron and Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer get back into the advantages of synthetic and conventional oils, how engines are lubricated and cooled, and a whole lot more. Learn about "the wedge" and maybe that modern vehicles are "liars"?
Find us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/cw/CycleWorldPodcast
Become a Channel Partner: https://octanemedia.co/home/become-an-advertiser/
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6CLI74xvMBFLDOC1tQaCOQ
Read more from Cycle World: https://www.cycleworld.com/
Buy Cycle World Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/cycleworld
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00:00Welcome to the Cycle World Podcast. I'm Mark Hoyer, Editor-in-Chief. I'm with Kevin Cameron,
00:00:05our Technical Editor. Thanks for watching us, joining us on YouTube. You can also get
00:00:10this on Patreon without commercials. If you join us, become a member, become a paying
00:00:16member on Patreon and no commercials. And so you can get this and more content from
00:00:20us. Thanks for listening wherever you are. Today, we're going to be talking about modern
00:00:27lube oils. Oil. What is oil? What kind of oils do we like? Specifically, we seem to like
00:00:35synthetic oil. So we're going to focus on that today. And Kevin's obviously thought about
00:00:39this and we all need it. We all need oil to have our dreams come true on motorcycles.
00:00:47It's everywhere. So it's really fundamental. Even your electric bikes need a little bit
00:00:52of oil. So let's get started, Kevin. Oil and grease, yes. Yeah. Well, mechanical devices
00:01:04such as engines and gearboxes can't function without lubricant films to separate the surfaces
00:01:14surfaces. And in order to dynamically separate surfaces, we have to provide a liquid that is swept
00:01:35into the loaded zone by the motion of the parts themselves. As fast as the load squeezes this
00:01:44liquid out at the sides of the contact area. Now, the desired result is that the load
00:01:54doesn't touch the non-moving part of the assembly. There is no surface-to-surface contact.
00:02:01I think our driving or riding a motorcycle analogy might be hydroplaning on a pedal.
00:02:08The surfaces are not touching. That's great lubrication. Only in that case, it's the inertia of the fluid
00:02:14that keeps it, drives it under the front tire and causes that feeling, which gets your attention.
00:02:28But of course, it's easy to think of liquids as being like water. Water has very low friction
00:02:40within itself. What we need is a fluid that resists being squeezed out enough that it can separate the
00:02:50two surfaces as the two surfaces as the motion continues, as between a piston and the cylinder wall,
00:02:57as between a crankshaft journal and the bearing that supports it. And this friction we call viscosity.
00:03:10And viscosity is the resistance of layers of fluid to sliding over one another.
00:03:21And it's hard to imagine the fluid, which you're riding in a boat and you trail your fingers
00:03:27over side and you feel the cool water splashing past your old fingernails. And it's very insubstantial.
00:03:42But in this case, oils are fluids which are provided with enough viscosity to be useful in the task that
00:03:54I just described.
00:03:55And usually the production of a lubricant film is referred to as wedge formation. And it's easy to understand why.
00:04:04Because if you imagine a piston sliding on a cylinder wall and the motion is causing fluid that's on the
00:04:15cylinder wall
00:04:16to be dragged under the advancing piston, why doesn't the fluid just squirt out at the sides and leave nothing?
00:04:26Well, we answered that already. It's viscosity that provides the resistance.
00:04:31But it does come out the sides of the bearing at some rate.
00:04:36So at the back of the bearing, a lot of fluid has been lost. So the film is thinner there.
00:04:45So we have a wedge-shaped film that is formed.
00:04:52Now, it's well known that oils lose viscosity as their temperature rises.
00:05:01If these oils, which consist of chain or ring structures of carbon atoms bonded to one another, each one bonded
00:05:13in turn to one or more hydrogen atoms,
00:05:17these chains I think of when we boil spaghetti and you see these long, sinuous strands of spaghetti, each one
00:05:27touching 50 or 100 others.
00:05:30And you can see that there is going to be resistance to sliding over one another.
00:05:35And in the molecular case, that resistance is various random short-range attractions form and are broken as the strands
00:05:46slide over one another.
00:05:49That is the source of viscosity.
00:05:51As the temperature rises, those carbon structures begin, they have more energy.
00:06:01Temperature is a measure of molecular energy so that they're less able to form those bonds and they slide over
00:06:09one another more easily.
00:06:10Well, what if the oil we choose is able to form lubricant films wedge-shaped?
00:06:21In the case of a round journal in a round bearing, the wedge is formed by the journal being pushed
00:06:29slightly offside so that the space between the journal and the bearing is tapered.
00:06:38So what if the viscosity declines so much as we rise to the operating temperature of the engine that the
00:06:49oil wedge no longer forms?
00:06:51Well, it makes the machine unviable.
00:06:54We can't use it.
00:06:56We can't use it.
00:06:56So that means that we have to provide a viscosity enough to fly the parts on this oil film at
00:07:05operating temperature.
00:07:06Now, the other problem is, of course, cold starting, because as the temperature of the lubricant declines, a number of
00:07:19mechanisms conspire to thicken it, to increase its viscosity, possibly to the point where the starter won't turn the engine.
00:07:36And what we're interested in, therefore, is the slope of the viscosity versus temperature line, which is called viscosity index.
00:07:50What we want is a high VI viscosity index such that not only can we cold start the engine, but
00:08:00when it warms up,
00:08:01the loads and surfaces that we've provided in the design of the engine are enough to maintain an oil film
00:08:09and thus the whole mechanism does not scuff and seize.
00:08:20Now, what happens here is that there has been a great progress from the early days when oil was simply
00:08:35a certain range of boiling temperatures when they distilled crude oil in a distillation tower.
00:08:44And if the machinery to be lubricated was very hot and the loads were very high, for example, in the
00:08:52air-cooled engines in summertime, we would want a more viscous oil so that as it lost viscosity, as it
00:09:01heated up, it would still be able to carry the load.
00:09:08But again, we have to bear in mind this concept of viscosity index.
00:09:12How fast does the lubricant?
00:09:16How fast does the lubricant lose viscosity as it warms up?
00:09:19Well, early oils, as I say, were just what boiled out of crude between two different temperatures.
00:09:32And petroleum consists of hundreds of different molecular structures.
00:09:38Most of them are hydrocarbons, that is, structures consisting of carbon and hydrogen atoms.
00:09:48When early oils became cold, they solidified.
00:09:52And if you look at early automobile engines in museums or at antique meats, you'll see that atop each cylinder
00:10:03head is a small petcocks, normally closed.
00:10:06For cold starting, you opened the petcocks and poured a few cc's of gasoline into each cylinder.
00:10:15Then you closed the petcocks, waited a certain time, and then got on the crank to see if you could
00:10:25turn the engine.
00:10:26If the gasoline had dissolved the solidified oil into a liquid again, you could proceed with your starting procedure and
00:10:38have a running engine.
00:10:39Well, they found that this congealing of oil at non-running temperatures was the result of wax formation.
00:10:51So they developed techniques to remove the wax, de-waxed oil.
00:11:03And at the appearance of each problem with an oil, chemists would be put on the job to come up
00:11:13with a solution.
00:11:15Another important task for oil is cooling.
00:11:19Because if you put a drop of oil in a bearing, it fills the clearance space.
00:11:26Why do you need any more than that?
00:11:29Well, first of all, the load is going to squeeze the oil out at the sides of the bearing and
00:11:34it will be lost.
00:11:35So soon there will be no support to the revolving journal and the thing will overheat and cease.
00:11:45So the clearance is made slightly larger than it needs to be so that an excess amount of oil flows
00:11:54through the bearing as a coolant.
00:11:58So that the heat of friction in the oil, which is viscosity, is carried away rather than accumulating.
00:12:12This is such a problem in some kinds of racing engines.
00:12:16In Formula One, for example, they went back to the old practice of casting the bearing material on the connecting
00:12:25rod ID.
00:12:27Because a separate C-shaped insert put into the bearing as the engine is assembled involved passing heat from the
00:12:41bearing into the rod.
00:12:45And the bearing insert and the rod are not in intimate contact.
00:12:52They're not as one.
00:12:53You have clamped them together very firmly for the very reason that you want heat generated in the rod and
00:13:01the bearing inserts to have somewhere to go.
00:13:05We've provided extra clearance in the bearing so that more oil will throw through and carry away some of the
00:13:10heat.
00:13:13But this practice of making the bearing metal bonding it to the rod itself is the way connecting rods were
00:13:23made more than 100 years ago.
00:13:26So it's back to fundamentals in that area.
00:13:29Well, it's like the old aerial square four pouring your Babbitt.
00:13:33Yes.
00:13:35Scraping.
00:13:39Well, Eugene Goodman at Velocet in the early 1920s decided that…
00:13:46Does that even count as a drink?
00:13:47I don't know.
00:13:48You said it, not me.
00:13:52Sorry, Eugene Goodman.
00:13:52We're not making the rules here.
00:13:53It's our loyal supporters whose comments create community.
00:14:02And brighten my days, definitely.
00:14:04Yes, indeed.
00:14:04Brighten our days.
00:14:07Eugene Goodman, his company had been making two-strokes.
00:14:11And a former editor of Cycle World, David Edwards, had a Velocet two-stroke in his office.
00:14:20Goodman decides, if we're going to go the four-stroke route, let's look around and see what's hot.
00:14:26And they went to Brooklands and they went to the Alaman and whatnot.
00:14:32And they saw overhead cam.
00:14:34Okay, we'll have one of those.
00:14:36So they built an overhead cam single.
00:14:40And they provided it with pumped circulating oil system.
00:14:47Now, early motorcycles, you just added a couple of ounces of oil to the crankcase and relied upon splash to
00:14:57lubricate everything.
00:15:00And when you saw that there was no longer smoke trailing behind your bike, you gave a couple of strokes
00:15:07on a hand or foot-operated pump.
00:15:09And fresh oil from a tank was delivered to the crankcase.
00:15:14And in this way, you barely stayed ahead of scuffing and seizure as your machine drew the destination toward you.
00:15:25Well, I love on some of the old bikes the little percolator that they have so that you could see
00:15:30that oil is circulating.
00:15:32There's a little glass dome and a little pipe.
00:15:34And it goes, and you can see it happening.
00:15:36Oh, yes, the little pulses.
00:15:37And if it starts to decline, then you go, oh, we might need a little, and you put some more
00:15:43back in there.
00:15:43And that's your, they call it a total loss, but it sticks around, you know, on other things.
00:15:50You'll have some on your pants, I'm certain.
00:15:53He noticed, Eugene Goodman noticed, that engines running with circulating oil, pumped recirculating oil, had a more level temperature distribution.
00:16:09In other words, the presence of the oil touching all the moving parts inside the engine, cooled the hottest parts,
00:16:17and it warmed the coolest parts.
00:16:22So, this was a valuable function of the oil.
00:16:29So, can we pause and talk about the order of doing that and how that evolved?
00:16:34Because it's also happened in liquid cooling systems with ethylene glycol and water.
00:16:40Sure.
00:16:41Cooling the hottest parts first.
00:16:43Pumping the oil to the hottest parts first to cool them and to bring the temperature, to normalize the temperature
00:16:50over the entire engine, like Kevin was talking about.
00:16:52And recently with Harley Davidson's big twin, the engine that they're now running also in their race bikes, the cooling
00:17:00system was redesigned and it's no longer twin cooled, it's just cooled.
00:17:06They pump the coolant to the rear cylinder head first, because that one is blocked from airflow.
00:17:13So, the coolest coolant hits that hot cylinder head and then normalizes the temperature as it travels forward back to
00:17:22the radiator through the front cylinder head, which is better cooled by air.
00:17:27And that's what they're doing with oil and engines, is getting that oil up to a cylinder head and letting
00:17:33it rain down and bring it back to the crankcase.
00:17:35From those hot combustion, combustion areas, the exhaust bridge.
00:17:41Yes, such as.
00:17:44And of course, as we know, in former times, the 1200 Sportster had problems with exhaust valve seat distortion.
00:17:58So, they circulated oil through drillings in the cylinder head to correct that.
00:18:06Now, purely rational, as opposed to emotional, people would say, why didn't they just water cool that thing?
00:18:15The answer is…
00:18:17Shut up.
00:18:18Shut up.
00:18:20Shut up.
00:18:21Really good.
00:18:22The answer is, of course, that people liked the Sportster because it was Sportster.
00:18:29And if it were given water cooling, it would become something else.
00:18:34It would lose some of its identity.
00:18:37What if you water cooled it and made it a 60-degree V-twin?
00:18:40Then how would you feel about it?
00:18:45Well…
00:18:45We're saying this, so we're just making a joke because Harley Davidson announced very recently
00:18:50that they're bringing back the 883 air-cooled Sportster in some form.
00:18:54They've been very coy about it.
00:18:56A popular claim.
00:18:57And we, you know, we have a very loyal and large Facebook following.
00:19:02They are active, and they're especially active when they're active.
00:19:05And let me tell you that an 883 Sportster post on Facebook is active.
00:19:12Yeah.
00:19:12So there's a lot of passion out there.
00:19:14Well, the thing about 883 was it was a place to start.
00:19:17If you wanted to live the Harley life, if you wanted that sound…
00:19:22And there are millions who do, no matter how much the sport bike folks want to make fun of them.
00:19:32And, of course, there's fun to be made because there are motorcycles
00:19:37whose power mainly goes into making characteristic noises rather than thrusting them down the road
00:19:44at a high rate of knots.
00:19:46And not everyone is sympathetic to that, but the supporters are.
00:19:52And they, by golly, yes.
00:19:55The broad motorcycle culture has a vacant imprint in its mind that is shaped like a Sportster,
00:20:02shaped like a big twin, shaped like an FL from 1939.
00:20:06I mean, it's just there.
00:20:09And, yeah, bringing that back, it clicks right in.
00:20:13It makes the sound.
00:20:14I will say, again, the Sportster was its own unique thing.
00:20:18From 2003, rubber mount to now, or the last Sportster in 2022, I think, they sold a million.
00:20:26And, again, on no technical merit, but definitely on an emotional merit.
00:20:32And they're good motorcycles.
00:20:32Don't get me wrong.
00:20:33They're not, you know, but it's heavier than an MT-07 or an MT-09.
00:20:37It's not as agile.
00:20:38And yet it exists and it moves and people like it.
00:20:43And people are moved by it, yes.
00:20:45Moved by it.
00:20:46So, back to the drillings.
00:20:48I asked one of the engineers that these drillings existed.
00:20:53I asked one of the engine guys, do you get any coking in those drillings?
00:20:57No.
00:20:58No coking.
00:20:59So, that was good.
00:21:00Because if you cook the oil too hot, it'll coke and it could plug up your little drillings
00:21:04and then...
00:21:05Just say, no coking in an authoritative voice and the problem will be over with.
00:21:11Well, in the 1930s, Benelli had enough experience in racing that they saw that when their air-cooled
00:21:22race engines got pretty hot on a summer day, the oil lost enough viscosity to become a problem.
00:21:28What is the correct answer?
00:21:30Put in thicker oil or install an oil cooler?
00:21:35They patented it.
00:21:37Of course, the large aircraft piston engines droning overhead all had oil coolers.
00:21:47So, that was an historical point.
00:21:51Then, in the early 70s, when MV began to build truly modern air-cooled racing engines, they
00:22:03found it necessary to follow the trend of narrowing the valve angle, swinging the stems of the intake
00:22:11and exhaust valves toward one another, creating a flatter combustion chamber that lit up and burned more quickly.
00:22:21But, in the old days, with the valves splayed far apart, in between there was plenty of room for cooling
00:22:29fins
00:22:30directly on top of the hot cylinder head.
00:22:33So, how are you going to cool the cylinder head when the valve angle closes up and there's no place
00:22:40to put those fins?
00:22:42Oil.
00:22:45And that was the time when you began to see MV road race bikes with the front number plate drilled
00:22:53full of innumerable holes
00:22:55to feed air to an oil cooler directly behind them.
00:23:00So, that was all in an attempt to keep oil from losing so much viscosity that it could no longer
00:23:11support the loads that it had to.
00:23:15When should we talk about things like Vela sets where I really want to run a 20-50 and particularly
00:23:27modern cars where you're doing 0-20,
00:23:30where they're really hammering down the asperities on the journals.
00:23:33Just want to say asperities.
00:23:34Yes.
00:23:37And, because it's so interesting, there's so much chatter about it on the interwebs.
00:23:42You know, 0-20 is ruining your engine and the Toyota, they're using 0-20 to meet CAFE to get
00:23:49the mileage standards.
00:23:51They're lowering the viscosity oil, tightening the clearances and making it work.
00:23:54Well, you're talking about multigrades.
00:23:56Yeah.
00:23:57So, yes.
00:23:59The great thing, the reason why multigrades exist, which behave like a light oil at low temperature,
00:24:10but as they warm up, they act like they were a heavier oil.
00:24:16Now, this is done because viscosity index by its lonesome cannot do the whole job.
00:24:29Can anyone remember a poor, overworked six-volt starter trying to start an engine in 30 below?
00:24:40Well, not 30 below.
00:24:41I can't say that.
00:24:43But cold enough to make a big difference.
00:24:47And you think, it's not, it can't happen.
00:24:53Well, they devised an amazing system to further broaden the viscosity range of an oil such that
00:25:04it would be viscous enough at operating temperature to handle all the normal loads.
00:25:11And yet, would not solidify or become so thickened at lower temperatures as to make the engine
00:25:22unstartable.
00:25:23Is this non-Newtonian?
00:25:25I've heard of non-Newtonian fluids.
00:25:28Yes, well.
00:25:29There's an armor that is easy to deform at low speed.
00:25:34So, it's a body armor, D3O.
00:25:37And this goo, they call it, you stick your finger in it slowly and it's easy to deform.
00:25:43If you hit it with a hammer, it does not deform.
00:25:46So, you have this-
00:25:46Silly putty.
00:25:47Yeah.
00:25:48You have this compliant, easy to move armor.
00:25:52But when it's called to duty by velocity, it firms up and absorbs the impact.
00:25:59Non-Newtonian.
00:26:00It just sounds the opposite of your expectation is what I would just put non-Newtonian on everything.
00:26:05You may have to look at your assailant and see what weapon he's carrying.
00:26:10Yes.
00:26:11Oh, go ahead.
00:26:13Or, can't you, here, let me lend you mine.
00:26:17You got the drop on me.
00:26:22Well, what they hit upon was, we'll start with a base oil that is very light, has a low viscosity.
00:26:31And we'll add chemistry to it that causes it to lose less viscosity as it warms up than it would
00:26:44if it were a single weight light base oil.
00:26:47And this takes the form of long chain molecules, which in low temperatures become more compact.
00:26:58They roll up in a ball and make almost no contribution to viscosity.
00:27:05The 5-weight oil in your crankcase pours, it pumps, and at that temperature it lubricates perfectly well because it
00:27:16has the viscosity needed to support the loads.
00:27:20Wheel, wheel, wheel, wheel goes the starter.
00:27:21Brum.
00:27:22Ah.
00:27:24Yes, indeed.
00:27:25Make sure your terminals are tight.
00:27:26Yep.
00:27:27And as the engine warms up, those rolled up in a ball, long chains begin to extend themselves.
00:27:37And they do so at a rate such that their contribution to viscosity keeps up with the needs of the
00:27:47loads in the engine for which it was designed.
00:27:51Now, this is all very well if the long chains remain long.
00:27:57And there are a number of different chemistries that are used for this, and some are el cheapo and don't
00:28:05last all that long, and some are more expensive, or at least they charge more for them.
00:28:09And they last longer.
00:28:14So, if those long molecules begin to break up under the constant sheer stress of what's happening in bearings between
00:28:24pistons and cylinder walls, all those molecules are tumbling and rubbing against each other and frankly being sometimes torn to
00:28:35pieces.
00:28:36So, this is called falling out of grade.
00:28:42And oil analysis people will be glad to tell you if this is happening.
00:28:48You send them some of your used oil, they check it out, and they draw the conclusion that the viscosity
00:28:58improving agent, the VI improver,
00:29:01this long chain molecule that rolls up into a ball when it's cold, as do cats on a sofa, those
00:29:13that are broken.
00:29:13And so, their average length is not up to the task, and your engine is under-lubricated once it's warmed
00:29:19up.
00:29:20So, this is a good time to pause for oil change interval.
00:29:24And, you know, there's lots of different advice out there.
00:29:27Number one, you can follow your manufacturer motorcycle handbook, and you'd be pretty safe with that.
00:29:33You could knock it down a little if you're, you know, like, well, I ride hard or et cetera.
00:29:38What Kevin said in the Sport Bike Performance Handbook that I reviewed when I was an editor at Cycle News,
00:29:45when that book was published in…
00:29:47Cycle News!
00:29:4898?
00:29:4998?
00:29:50When that came out, I think.
00:29:52Right there, yeah.
00:29:54Kevin had a section in the Sport Bike Performance Handbook that talked about oil change interval, and one of the
00:30:00points he made is said,
00:30:01you could reduce your interval to every five minutes, and things would be wonderful in your head, wouldn't they?
00:30:08So, it is great to do an analysis.
00:30:10You don't have to analyze it every time.
00:30:13You just need to analyze it a few times, and you don't even have to do a complete oil change.
00:30:18You could just drain some off and then stick the plug back in real quick and see where you stand
00:30:23before you change it.
00:30:25Because, you know, this fancy stuff that we put in power sports, motorcycle things, boy, you can spend a lot
00:30:32of money on a quart of oil.
00:30:34Yep.
00:30:35Used to buy 12 quarts for $10 for the old Triumph TR6 back in the day.
00:30:42It's different now, but it's good to know the truth.
00:30:45The analysis is there.
00:30:46It's affordable.
00:30:48You know, it's $40 or less.
00:30:49You put it, you mail it in a pouch, and they send you back information.
00:30:56Yep.
00:30:57Carry on.
00:30:58Information.
00:30:58Good to have.
00:31:00And falling out of grade is just one of a variety of problems that an oil can suffer.
00:31:07Now, let's think about, oh, there's, of course, something that went along with this multi-grade business, and that is
00:31:17that Junior Johnson, stock car builder, felt that there was too much energy going into banging oil around inside of
00:31:31his engines.
00:31:31And he wanted to reduce the bearing clearance and reduce the viscosity of the oil.
00:31:37And he went to talk to old timers, and they said, oh, yeah, we used to do that all the
00:31:43time with the big radial engines.
00:31:45And we finished the crank pins with a process called Chrysler Super Finish, which produced a truly cylindrical, not just
00:31:56shiny, truly cylindrical surface with very low surface asperities.
00:32:06And that allowed the use of low viscosity base stock because it would let the surfaces touch if they were
00:32:21as rough as production parts before that time.
00:32:26And Honda introduced this super finish on Goldwing cranks in 76, so that's been a while.
00:32:35But the idea is, if the surfaces are very smooth, you can make the, you can allow the minimum oil
00:32:41film at the point of tremendous load to become thinner than normal and still carry the load properly.
00:32:49And that is where these crazy oils, 0W10 and so forth, have originated.
00:32:58And as Mark was pointing out, in some cases, the manufacturer of the vehicle has adopted that oil officially to
00:33:09make emissions, to reach some level of something that they measure.
00:33:17And in fact, it might be better for your engine to go up one level of viscosity to be sure.
00:33:26This is a claim that is made.
00:33:33So, what the numbers mean, a 5W20 means that at zero degrees, it behaves like a five-weight oil at
00:33:47that temperature.
00:33:50But that it behaves like a 20-weight oil at boiling water temperature, roughly 200 degrees Fahrenheit to 12.
00:34:01And that is not, it doesn't mean that it's getting more viscous as it heats up.
00:34:06It just means that it is not losing viscosity as fast as it otherwise would.
00:34:12So, we have the viscosity index to begin with, which was the reason why everyone raved about Pennsylvania crude, because
00:34:22oils made from that crude had higher viscosity indices than crudes from other fields.
00:34:33And now people know enough to be able to say, what is good in an oil?
00:34:39And that's, what is an ideal molecule?
00:34:43They found out that long straight chains either formed crystallites or became thicker and thicker at an alarming rate as
00:34:58they grew cooler.
00:34:59So, let's put those aside.
00:35:01They found that ring compounds, such as benzene, this one that has six carbons in a ring, weren't so hot
00:35:14because they were so often heteroatoms, atoms other than the ones you want to be there associated with them.
00:35:23So, what they were left with was certain branched chain structures that were the ideal molecule.
00:35:34And the polyalpha olefin base oil that is used to make Mobile One and other PAO-based oils is, instead
00:35:49of being refined from crude oil, it is synthesized from smaller pieces that are polymerized together to produce branched chains
00:36:01where the chains are of a desired
00:36:04length.
00:36:04And how do they do all of this?
00:36:06And how do they do all of this?
00:36:06They do it with catalysts.
00:36:10It sounds like the digital versus analog audio argument.
00:36:14It really does.
00:36:15Because what I will say is I have an associate, a friend who's a street freestyler.
00:36:22So, he's intimate with how to use a clutch.
00:36:25His clutch control, obviously, is among the best in the world.
00:36:28And he does many, many interesting things with his clutch and engine power and torque, wheelies, stoppies, you name it,
00:36:35all the stuff going on.
00:36:36And he's a connoisseur of the engagement point in the clutch.
00:36:39And he says he doesn't like 100% synthetic.
00:36:42He likes a blend because there's something in the natural oil that gives him a better feel and a better
00:36:50engagement in that window.
00:36:52And to me, it's like, well, I like listening to vinyl because it has infinite vibrations.
00:36:58And, you know, it's not just parsing out the hertz and delivering them without background noise.
00:37:06And how do you know that it hasn't been digitally compressed?
00:37:10Yes.
00:37:10Which means throwing away little nuances that you want to hear.
00:37:16Oh, that's when the compression is why radio sounds so bad.
00:37:20Yeah.
00:37:21I mean, it's...
00:37:22This averages out to this, so forget that.
00:37:25We'll just...
00:37:26Yeah.
00:37:26Don't need it.
00:37:28Don't need it.
00:37:29So, they produce this wonderful molecule, which has a very high viscosity index up 130, 140.
00:37:44And because it is synthesized from small MERS, isomer, polymer, little units, there are no heteroatoms.
00:37:59There's no nitrogen, no sulfur, no metals attached.
00:38:03There are no aromatic compounds with their weak bonds that are subject to oxidation.
00:38:10So, this oil, this PAO base stock is much more resistant to gum and varnish formation and to loss of
00:38:22its properties.
00:38:23Because there's nothing in there, but what is intended to be there.
00:38:30And, of course, I have my tiresome way of talking about this, which is the drill sergeant wishes that every
00:38:41soldier was like the 17th guy in the line here.
00:38:45He's not too tall.
00:38:49He's in real good shape.
00:38:51He's a smart guy.
00:38:53But he knows how to take orders.
00:38:56Not too troublesome.
00:38:58And a very capable person.
00:39:01Why can't they all be like him?
00:39:05And PAOs is an approach to producing an army of identical, highly capable molecules.
00:39:16And this is, it's great to have oils that resist oxidation.
00:39:24I messed around with a 1940 Chevy when I was in high school.
00:39:30And when I lifted the valve cover off, it was just, it was like a horror movie.
00:39:38Hanging curtains of black sludge, some of which dropped off as I lifted the thing.
00:39:47Oh, maybe I should just put it back.
00:39:50I bought a 1958 triumph trophy that had been parked for decades.
00:39:57The story was the owner had kickstarted it and it broke his foot.
00:40:02And so he just kind of leaned it up against the wall.
00:40:05And what I found is that one of the exhaust push rods, exhaust valves had seized and broken the push
00:40:11rod and kind of buggered up the rocker arm.
00:40:13So it was hard to kickstart because compression must have been, you know, 400 PSI on that one.
00:40:20Cause it was, it was very, it was not letting it go anywhere.
00:40:23So it was very hard to kick.
00:40:25And, um, anyway, by the time I got it, it needed a top end and I'm like, well, I'll, I'll
00:40:29get through that.
00:40:30And I took the oil tank off.
00:40:31I looked inside and I said, wow, it still has oil.
00:40:34It wasn't oil.
00:40:35It was, it was a waxy substance, black and terrible at the bottom of the oil tank.
00:40:40And it took a lot of physical removal.
00:40:43I took, um, a plastic, uh, handle from a spatula.
00:40:48The spatula was long gone, but it had, it was just a long plastic stick.
00:40:52I knew it wouldn't scratch, uh, anything.
00:40:54And I just started chipping away, putting a little solvent, you know, trying your various, uh, acetones and lacquer thinners.
00:41:02And, oh gosh, maybe some MEK.
00:41:06Save the MEK first.
00:41:08I'm very sympathetic.
00:41:09I'm very sympathetic because yesterday my wife's, uh, mowing tractor ran out of gas.
00:41:16And one of the sons smelled the different fuel drums.
00:41:22And the one that smelled most like gasoline was diesel.
00:41:27So I was called upon to remove every bit of that diesel from the tank, the lines, the pump, the
00:41:38float bowl, et cetera.
00:41:40Oh boy.
00:41:41And of course, then it started and ran fine.
00:41:44But there was much between.
00:41:47Hard to light.
00:41:48Gosh.
00:41:51So, uh, better to create these ideal soldier oils that are strongly resistant.
00:42:02Their, uh, carbon to carbon and carbon to hydrogen bonds are not susceptible to oxidation because there aren't any ring
00:42:13structures that have those weak bonds holding them together where oxygen can get in there and nibble on it.
00:42:20So we don't have that horrible problem with this new type of oil.
00:42:26So, uh, to remove the vulnerable ring compounds, they at first used solvent extraction.
00:42:36Well, here's a solvent that favors this stuff.
00:42:39So we'll mix it together.
00:42:41Then we'll recover the solvent with the undesired aromatics and it would reduce the population to a certain degree.
00:42:51You know, Kevin, I just want to say that if, um, if only you had been around during my chemistry,
00:42:57uh, class in high school and my ensuing chemistry classes in college, I might've had a much better time.
00:43:05And my topics would have been a lot more relevant to my enthusiasm.
00:43:07So I appreciate this very much.
00:43:09I also like your, uh, your graphic representation or audible representation of oxidization, taking a bite.
00:43:18Arr!
00:43:20Chewing in there.
00:43:22Yep.
00:43:22Well, the central problem of petroleum derived oils is excessive diversity.
00:43:29So many different molecular species, so many hetero atoms, so many, um, contaminants of various kinds.
00:43:38And refining the refining process usually meant for so many years, taking out the stuff that was bad and burning
00:43:50it for process heat.
00:43:53But then chemists began to say, you know, uh, we've been doing some great stuff with catalysts for a number
00:44:01of years.
00:44:03Why don't we just make a catalyst that will bite into those ring compounds and open them up into a
00:44:13straight chain.
00:44:14And then we can reform them chemically by passing them through processes that we have developed to make them into
00:44:24the ideal lube oil molecule.
00:44:33Now, this business of developing catalysts, our bodies are filled with catalysts and they are called enzymes.
00:44:41If your body does not produce lactase, which is an enzyme that, uh, helps to disassemble the milk sugar lactose,
00:44:55then you have lactose intolerance.
00:45:00And these enzymes are fiendishly clever.
00:45:05They have shapes that are intimately complementary to the shapes of the substrate molecule on which they are supposed to
00:45:13act.
00:45:13And they assemble in the mad thermal confusion of the reactor.
00:45:21They assemble the, uh, sensitive bond in the substrate molecule is deformed by the catalyst in such a way that
00:45:36the desired change is much more likely to take place.
00:45:39And some of them are so marvelously specific.
00:45:44How, by what process could these extremely clever things be, uh, created?
00:45:53Well, if you've got a billion years, um, a lot of things become possible that the human lifespan regards as
00:46:03laughably unlikely.
00:46:06Well, we're very good at accelerating things though, aren't we?
00:46:08We can, we can hit the pedal of the metal if we start thinking about it.
00:46:11It's pretty cool.
00:46:12Yes, indeed.
00:46:15So, one of the other things that we want from a lube oil is, uh, that if the oil film
00:46:23breaks down, as it does during cold starting, what's going to protect the surfaces from each other?
00:46:32And people in the oil industry discovered early on that most of the wear that takes place takes place during
00:46:39startup.
00:46:42Ah, what a tedious thing.
00:46:44Um, but they also knew that certain oils such as castor, the oil of the castor bean are highly polar.
00:46:57Each molecule is electrically neutral, but the charge is the positive and the negative are not located together.
00:47:06They're located at some distance apart.
00:47:08So there are, uh, positive and negative fields around these things and they can induce the opposite in metal surfaces.
00:47:17And that makes them stick.
00:47:20Castor oil is supreme at this.
00:47:22And diesters were designed to have this property, which is why when polyalpha olefins are found not to make a
00:47:35successful oil because they are nonpolar, they just mix some diesters with it.
00:47:42Presto.
00:47:43All the good stuff.
00:47:46We like our ZDDP too.
00:47:49Diesters are synthetic to begin with.
00:47:52In the early days of gas turbines, when Frank Whittle, for example, was performing his experiments and driving himself close
00:47:59to madness because the Royal Air Force said,
00:48:03well, it was your duty to design the jet engine.
00:48:07We'll take it now.
00:48:09They had mineral oil in the 1950s.
00:48:13Uh, and afterward they used these diester oils because they were polar.
00:48:21They stuck to surfaces.
00:48:24And then sometime in the 1960s, they came up with neopentyl polyol esters, which had wonderful properties, including the one
00:48:35that the gas turbine people are especially interested in, and that is strong resistance to degradation from heat.
00:48:44And I have a little box.
00:48:46And I have a little box up in the shop filled with Neo two stroke oil.
00:48:50I never actually used any, but I bought a little box of it.
00:48:54And that's, it's just the third generation gas turbine oil.
00:48:59So, well, other things to prevent, uh, cold start exaggerated where are anti wear, uh, materials such as, um, Oh,
00:49:15what was it?
00:49:15Uh, TCP at the end of the 1950s, uh, one of the, uh, oil manufacturers advertising that their gasoline contained
00:49:27tricrystal phosphate.
00:49:29It's a very aggressive, uh, anti wear that.
00:49:35I guess it had the property of increasing bearing clearances, so it was discontinued, but they've come up.
00:49:42They've got a million others because these catalyst people, they're, they're very creative.
00:49:50Well, widely known ZDDP zinc diethyl alkyl phosphate.
00:49:57Yes.
00:49:59No, don't use too much anymore for protection of your catalytic converter, but, uh, your flat tapping engines love it
00:50:07now for, uh, further evidence of.
00:50:13That humans are fascinated by problems and just won't let go of them until they've come up with a solution.
00:50:21Are these clathrate based catalysts?
00:50:25The clathrate is a cage molecule and they can create these molecules with a door, an opening.
00:50:33The opening is of a size.
00:50:36It can be tailored to admit only molecules of the desired size, and they can then approach on its throne.
00:50:46The catalyst metal itself and be thereby altered into a different form and then exit to make room for others
00:50:57coming in for the same treatment.
00:50:58And this is wonderful stuff, a box that only lets in molecules of the desired size.
00:51:08Well, nature, of course, having had all that R and D time creates these, these shapes that are impossibly closely
00:51:17complimentary so that there is no ambiguity.
00:51:22Uh, people lacking the key are not admitted to this club.
00:51:26Um, well, uh, these wonderful poly alpha olefin plus diastere oils are such as mobile one.
00:51:43Are the current, uh, big noise in the night.
00:51:48It probably won't remain that way forever.
00:51:52Oh, one other thing I wanted to say about multigrades.
00:51:55People were critical of multigrades because that when the oil is spread out on the cylinder wall during the, the,
00:52:07uh, power stroke and into the exhaust stroke, what is happening to that layer of oil?
00:52:14The most volatile parts of the oil, i.e. the base stock are evaporating.
00:52:21They're becoming, uh, unburned hydrocarbons, which are now being merrily pumped out into the exhaust system.
00:52:32So there was some flap about that.
00:52:34The diesel people were very suspicious of multigrades.
00:52:38What's going to happen to my top piston rings?
00:52:40What's going to happen?
00:52:41They're cool.
00:52:41Motorcycle guys are real suspicious of it.
00:52:43And, and frankly, changing oils on the Norton, the Norton, uh, 850 that I, I rode quite a bit.
00:52:50Uh, once I found an oil that was pretty suitable for it, it did not gas off.
00:52:56It did not quote evaporate.
00:52:57I was consuming less oil by changing the oil that I was using in my Norton commando.
00:53:03Okay.
00:53:04Well, I have a photograph here someplace showing one of the great racing teams of, of the 1950s.
00:53:14At the Nurburgring and, uh, there is the head of the MV team with a one gallon tin that has
00:53:25had the side cut off of it.
00:53:26He is preheating oil to be poured into the race machines because they didn't have the viscosity index and they
00:53:36did not have the multigrade oil.
00:53:39So the way to deal with cold starting is to turn it into warm starting with preheated oil.
00:53:47My favorite racing oil, uh, of all time.
00:53:51I saw it Laguna Seca.
00:53:53Uh, it was the Vance and Heinz team and they were without an oil sponsor.
00:53:56And so they had bottles of oil that had tape on the labels and they'd written fast oil apply now.
00:54:06Yes.
00:54:07Well, then there, there was my friend, Ron Burns, um, who has missed the last 25 years, uh, who raced
00:54:18two strokes.
00:54:19And he was very amused by the constant parade of new two stroke oils, each claiming more power, better fuel
00:54:29economy and longer life.
00:54:31Smokeless.
00:54:32Smokeless.
00:54:33And so he bought, uh, bottles of Marvel mystery oil, the red and black.
00:54:41He poured away the mystery oil and filled it up with Yukon fluid, which was the basis for many of
00:54:47those two stroke oils back in the late sixties and 1970s.
00:54:53And stood them about his pit area.
00:54:56When he went to the races and people would say, Oh, what's that?
00:54:59What's that oil you're using there, man.
00:55:02And he'd say, it's a mystery.
00:55:08He, he would go in for elaborate self amusements like that.
00:55:12It was a feature of his personality.
00:55:18Anyway, let's see.
00:55:25Well, it turns out that, that, um, synthesis is not the only pathway to the ideal lube oil molecule.
00:55:35There's also processes of reforming existing molecules, and they all depend on catalysts like everything in the petroleum industry now.
00:55:45And it turns out possible to make those same ideal molecular shapes with the closely controlled, uh, branch chains and
00:55:58the other features that give them extraordinary, uh, viscosity index.
00:56:05And resistance to thermal degradation and all the rest of it, but made by, uh, not by synthesis, but by
00:56:17reforming existing molecules.
00:56:19And of course, who was motivated to make this, uh, to travel this path, the established producers of petroleum based
00:56:29oils.
00:56:32And cause here, the PAO based stuff is taking bites out of their market.
00:56:41Let's, let's have a big meeting of chemists and see if we can do this.
00:56:45Turned out they could.
00:56:46Now they're doing it.
00:56:47And this is just something that it's important to know about that there are mineral originated oils that are of
00:56:59extremely high quality, have competitive viscosity index, have competitive resistance oxidation and all the rest of it.
00:57:09So where there's a will, which often means millions and millions of dollars, there's a way.
00:57:17And the oil industry has never been lacking for, um, R and D funding.
00:57:24And so I, uh, I, uh, I'm somewhat reminded when I think about these chemists, people spend their lives doing
00:57:34this of Charlie Chaplin's movie, modern times in which he works on a production line.
00:57:42He's tightening bolts, ratchet wrench next.
00:57:49And when he goes home at night, he can't stop making these motions and it creates social problems.
00:57:56Well, I'm imagining the chemist who spends his days with these mouth filling, uh, descriptions, these names, chemical names, and
00:58:10all of these complicated processes.
00:58:13And when he gets home, he suddenly barks out penta erythritol, teptanitrate, or two, two, three trimethyl benzene.
00:58:24And he's sitting alone on the, he's sitting alone on the swing at a party.
00:58:30Yeah.
00:58:31He gets like this and explosive outburst syndrome, I think they call it.
00:58:38So I wish those people.
00:58:41Well, when you work in one of those abstruse fields, what do you do for small talk at home at
00:58:49the dinner table, watching TV afterwards?
00:58:53Got to be careful.
00:58:56I loved what you put problems home.
00:58:59No, I loved what you put in the notes.
00:59:00Here's a line I love from the handbook of petroleum refining processes edited by Robert A. Myers on such processes.
00:59:08The most relative class of lube oil molecules is that which contains nepentho aromatic groups.
00:59:14Combination of iso de-waxing and hydro finishing completely saturates these reactive compounds to impart high stability to the base
00:59:21oil.
00:59:23High five.
00:59:27Let's party.
00:59:28Do another shot.
00:59:30Yeah.
00:59:32The great thing about this, though, is that I got interested in aviation fuel many years ago, and I found
00:59:44some stuff that I could read about it that was written in a fashion that a person lacking a specialized
00:59:52education could pretty much get.
00:59:56And since then, I've tried to sort of peck away at this stuff because I really want to get some,
01:00:02however vague, understanding of what goes on in the petroleum business.
01:00:08And I think it's quite grand.
01:00:12Of course, nobody wants a refinery next door.
01:00:18There they are on the Gulf Coast.
01:00:21There they are in New Jersey and other places.
01:00:23But we can't get along without them.
01:00:26But we can't get along without them.
01:00:26And even if we go to all electric cars tomorrow, what are we going to do for petroleum-derived chemicals?
01:00:35Well, we could synthesize them, just like synthesizing polyalpha olefin oil-based stock.
01:00:43It's going to take power.
01:00:47Well, when renewable sources have become so abundant that there's a vast surplus, why would they create a vast surplus
01:00:56unless they had a buyer lined up?
01:00:58Well, you know, I do, or at least I suspect it's going to take a lot of organization to make
01:01:08this happen.
01:01:09It's a complex party, isn't it?
01:01:11But it could happen.
01:01:13The chemists could make anything you want.
01:01:17Some will cost more than others.
01:01:19Right now, mostly comes out of petroleum.
01:01:25So, the human plight.
01:01:28We're doing things the easy way now.
01:01:31We may have to do it the hard way.
01:01:33We know how.
01:01:35We just don't have the power right now.
01:01:41But, great to think of what a difference between being unable to start your car because the oil in the
01:01:48cylinder and on the rings in the cylinder wall has,
01:01:52become a solid.
01:01:55Take hold of the crank.
01:01:57Put your back into it.
01:01:58No movement.
01:02:01Let's get clever.
01:02:02We pour a little gasoline into each cylinder.
01:02:07Step by step to the present time.
01:02:10My wife loves digital fuel injection because it means it's 20 below zero.
01:02:16If you want to go shopping, you put the key in and turn and the engine starts.
01:02:22And the idle RPM is controlled.
01:02:25There's no fussing with a choke lever or any of that business.
01:02:31This is very convenient.
01:02:35It's grand.
01:02:36It is.
01:02:38The fuel control alone has changed the life of your oil.
01:02:42Yes.
01:02:43Because.
01:02:43As has been ring sealing, as has been all of the.
01:02:46Uh, I am a combustion chamber snob from rebuilding old air-cooled engines and finding, finally finding the recipe with
01:02:55a Nicosil bore and a bore plate and a nice piston with a good tight clearance that you can get
01:03:01away with.
01:03:01Because everything is accurate and having the oil in an air-cooled motorcycle, dare I say, Velocet, stay golden honey
01:03:08colored for close to 2000 miles.
01:03:11Whereas in the old days when.
01:03:13Yeah.
01:03:14When the, when the cylinder wasn't round and the piston was round, which it isn't supposed to be all of
01:03:20those problems, the oil would be black and 500 miles.
01:03:23The less.
01:03:24It just all of the, all the junk getting past the rings.
01:03:27And then you're using a carburetor, a slovenly carburetor spitting, God knows, you know, just.
01:03:34I mean, I love carbs.
01:03:36Don't get me wrong.
01:03:36Even a CV carburetor.
01:03:38I'd like.
01:03:39Rich in summer, lean in winter.
01:03:42Oh, go high, go low, changing.
01:03:45You know, it's so.
01:03:46Which is why there are all those great photographs of Kelker others and others looking at spark plugs.
01:03:53Through a little magnifier.
01:03:59Peering.
01:04:01Window into combustion.
01:04:03To get an understanding of what the mixture is.
01:04:06And whether you've got.
01:04:09Ideal timing or if you're a little retarded or if you're a little over.
01:04:14It's on there.
01:04:15It can tell you the story, but we don't need that anymore.
01:04:19Spark plugs stay in the engine for the life of the engine, practically.
01:04:24100,000 miles.
01:04:26Easy.
01:04:27Yeah.
01:04:27Yeah.
01:04:28And they.
01:04:30These engines today are ideally managed.
01:04:34They don't overheat.
01:04:36They.
01:04:38Oil is constantly circulating.
01:04:41Their fuel and combustion are being.
01:04:45Ignition timing are being managed by maps.
01:04:49So a lot of things that used to be covered.
01:04:52But well, we'll just.
01:04:53We'll just jet it a little rich and it'll be OK.
01:04:56Now.
01:04:57You can't do that anymore because EPA will not let that car be sold until it passes.
01:05:05So.
01:05:06It's.
01:05:07I did find out that new cars are liars though, Kevin.
01:05:10I didn't.
01:05:10I didn't know this, but as I was doing research.
01:05:14About engine temperature gauges.
01:05:16And other.
01:05:17Other things.
01:05:18A guy.
01:05:18A guy I know is a car engineer.
01:05:20And he said, oh, yeah.
01:05:21Yeah.
01:05:23Um.
01:05:23We run the temperature gauge.
01:05:26At normal.
01:05:27In the bottom third.
01:05:28All the time.
01:05:29Unless there's a massive deviation.
01:05:32Hmm.
01:05:33Because we don't want to get all the complaints that it's running hot.
01:05:36Because it really isn't running hot.
01:05:38If you let the gauge do the job now with.
01:05:42So call it the average consumer, whoever that is.
01:05:45And it fluctuates.
01:05:46People get panicked.
01:05:47So they just hold the needle.
01:05:49And then if it gets really bad, they say, hey, you got a problem.
01:05:52Take care.
01:05:52Yeah.
01:05:53Wonderful.
01:05:54And then even some of this.
01:05:56Well, some of the electric.
01:05:57Some of the electric car people.
01:06:00Don't.
01:06:00They'll have a.
01:06:01They'll.
01:06:01They're.
01:06:02They're speaking with the vehicle over the interwebs.
01:06:05Right.
01:06:05They understand what's happening with the vehicle as you're driving it down the road.
01:06:09And it will throw a code to them, but not to you.
01:06:12And they'll know that there's a problem with your vehicle.
01:06:15They will not contact you.
01:06:16If you contact them and complain, then they will take care of it.
01:06:21That is where we are on managing your maintenance costs as a manufacturer.
01:06:27What are your warranty costs?
01:06:29How much labor are you putting into the vehicle after the sale to make it right?
01:06:32Right.
01:06:33In 1944, the B-29 force had been sent to India and it was flying bombs and fuel over the
01:06:45hump
01:06:45into China so that they could roughly seven flights to transport enough tonnage for one mission against Japan.
01:07:01And they were having terrible problems with short engine life, with in flight fires, with engines quitting on takeoff and
01:07:11causing crashes.
01:07:16The manufacturer, right, sent an engineer, Frank Larry, L-A-R-Y, to India to scope this out.
01:07:28Just, you know, hang around the shops and see what's happening.
01:07:32And so, he's looking over all these piles of reports.
01:07:36Engine temperature is always in the green.
01:07:40So, finally, he went up to a crew chief that he'd gotten friendly with and he said,
01:07:46what is this with always in the green like this?
01:07:49We know that the exhaust ports are ovalizing or they're translating to one side.
01:07:54So, you've got only one or two points of contact.
01:07:58The valve overheats.
01:07:59Chunks fall out.
01:08:00The jug is jacked off the engine and then the thing catches fire.
01:08:05He said, oh, we got orders to do that.
01:08:10They don't want these units to look like they're deviants.
01:08:16So, we got a memo that said, forget what the actual temperature is.
01:08:21It's not important.
01:08:23Just write these numbers in.
01:08:25Aha.
01:08:29Here he was wasting all this time reading these after flight reports.
01:08:35When, and he knew that the problems were real because there were piles of wrecked engines.
01:08:43And then he found out that the information on the cause was not making it back to the manufacturer because
01:08:51it would look bad.
01:08:58Yeah, there was the, I think it was a Kawasaki Ninja 900.
01:09:03It was a Kawasaki and the gauge was sort of running in the middle, I guess.
01:09:08It was running higher than you might expect your normal.
01:09:13We seem to run them in the bottom third.
01:09:15That was, you know, if it says normal, it's on the O.
01:09:18Yeah.
01:09:18You know, it's not on the L.
01:09:19L seems abnormal.
01:09:21That seems on the hot side, you know.
01:09:23And there was a gauge that was reading high and they were getting a lot of complaints about it.
01:09:29And there was a warranty fix.
01:09:31And then, I don't know that, I don't think it was a recall, but the fix was putting a resistor
01:09:36on the wire going to the gauge so that it would read lower to fix the problem.
01:09:43Wonderful.
01:09:44Sure.
01:09:44It is.
01:09:44It's great.
01:09:45I don't know how that has anything to do with synthetic oil or…
01:09:50Well, it's like politics.
01:09:53It's expensive to fix the actual problem, but making people feel better about it is less expensive.
01:10:03And how much could the resistor cost?
01:10:06Well, it's easy to write the check while you're in office if it gets cashed or you're projecting that it'll
01:10:11get cashed 10 years after you're finished.
01:10:15Yep.
01:10:15For sure.
01:10:16All right, folks.
01:10:17Well, that was great, Kevin.
01:10:20It makes me want to go change the oil on my pickup and put fresh oil on the Velocet because
01:10:25I'm sure that's been in there too long.
01:10:27I want to see that amber-colored oil for 2,000 miles.
01:10:30That's a great story.
01:10:31It really is.
01:10:32Well, I posted…
01:10:33Something to aspire to.
01:10:34It is.
01:10:34I posted a picture of that to the Velocet group, and one of the guys in the club said,
01:10:42that engine has never been in a Velocet, or excuse me, that oil has never been in a Velocet engine.
01:10:47Yeah.
01:10:48Great.
01:10:50Oh, it was because I had the timing cover off.
01:10:53And, you know, when you're setting the timing, you have to have the timing cover off when you're doing the
01:10:57automatic timing device,
01:10:59and you're wedging open the weights so that it's maximum advance, and then you're turning the damn thing on the
01:11:04straight…
01:11:04On the taper, there's no key because you have to be able to turn it in fine increments and then
01:11:09tap it on and tighten your nut.
01:11:11And then did it slip or didn't it slip?
01:11:13And you recheck it again.
01:11:14So, you have the timing cover off to do all this.
01:11:17And, of course, all you could see in all the little looks and topographies of the African continent, as they
01:11:24say about the timing cover of the Velocet,
01:11:27was all this golden hues.
01:11:28And then the aluminum is just as clean as can be because it was immaculate, immaculately cleaned the last of
01:11:34many times I've done a rebuild on it,
01:11:36which has been together for a long time now.
01:11:39But there it was.
01:11:40And he said, well, that's not…
01:11:41That oil's never, never been in a Velocet, this golden hue.
01:11:46It's great.
01:11:47It's just…
01:11:48It's so nice when you, as we've discussed many times, is that you hammer the problem and you try to
01:11:54figure out what it is,
01:11:55and you keep working and you keep working and you get a result that you desired, as Kevin has put
01:12:00in the past with me many times.
01:12:02He calls it getting what you came for.
01:12:04Yes.
01:12:05Yes, indeed.
01:12:06So, it's getting what you came for.
01:12:10Well, thanks for listening, folks.
01:12:12We always enjoy our time together with you.
01:12:16Thank you, Kevin, yet again, for another ding-dong battle with interesting vocabulary.
01:12:22It makes me want to do a vocabulary episode, and we can just start with Asparities, capital A.
01:12:28I didn't mention this excrescences once.
01:12:31No.
01:12:31Well, we'll start with A, and we'll go to Z, and we'll try to do a motorsports-related vocabulary one
01:12:38of these times.
01:12:38Yeah.
01:12:39It'd be a worthy hour.
01:12:42Thanks for listening.
01:12:43Alrighty.
01:12:44Thanks again for listening to Yes Losts.
01:12:44Thank you so much
Comments