To Add Lucas or Not to Add Lucas

It is good for buying time on a for a worn out engine before a overhaul. Thicken the oil to control oil burning . That about it.

 

Years ago I used to be an engine tech in a truck shop. I was always skeptical about all oil additives. After all if an additive really worked why would the oil companies not add it.
One day the service manager called me to the phone to talk to a driver about an engine problem. He had a newer N14 and had lost oil pressure and his power steering at the same time. Cummins was having a problem with the drive gear falling off the lube pump shaft.
The power steering pump ran off the back of the lube pump.

He was several hours away and wanted to know if we could send someone out to replace the pump. I asked him how fast he shut the engine off after it lost oil pressure. He told me it was a dump truck and he had a load of hot asphalt in the box. He had backed up to the paving machine and dumped the load into the paving machine. I'm not sure how long that took but I would guess a few minutes. I sent a tow truck to bring it to the shop.

The next morning the truck was waiting in the shop for me. I drained the oil and removed the pan and pulled some bearing caps. The bearing were real shiny and polished but there was no scoring or metal transfer I could have reused them. I replaced the bearings and lube pump and had just finished pumping 40 liters of oil into the engine when the owner walked up to me with a 4 liter jug and said put this in the oil. It was oil stabilizer. He told me he had added it the oil of all the engines that he had owned since they were new.

The owner had run the engine for 5 or more minutes with no oil pressure and there was no damage. Could it have been oil stabilizer that saved it?

I have seen a few engines that lost oil pressure from failed oil lines and were shut off fairly quickly and suffered a lot of damage especially to the crank shaft and bearings.

 

No way! Lucas is so much more thicker than a 60 wt oil!

 

I use this, as do many others, Gl-4 Gear Lube in my 2008 Cummins CM-871, good for DPF or older motors. One gallon per oil change.... Some put half a gallon in in the winter months, I always use the entire gallon.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000M8RYMC/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If you have an SCR system, you want to use a GL-5 Gear Lube like this, due to the emissions, for the way the SCR system handles the SOOT...
https://www.amazon.com/Sta-Lube-SL2...88335&sr=1-1&keywords=sta+lube+gl-5+gear+lube

The new oil blends, look it up, do your own research, are stripping many of the additives out of their oils to meet the guidelines of these new emission motors.

I have been using this stuff for three years, others have been using longer. And when we in framed, the top end looked like new. Now, was it the gear lube and the additives it brings to the table? Well, your guess is as good as mine, but I can read.

Now, look at Lucas, what the hell is in that stuff that helps your motor? Nothing that I know of. That Sta-Lube? It is packed with additives, additives that have been slowly disappearing from these new oil blends. I will leave it at that.

 

I am not sold by that. Have been surprised how long and how little different engines run without oil. Saw a deal where a Slick 50 salesman had a large group of people. He put his stuff in a new Briggs and ran it. Then drained the oil and ran it. Many people put money in the pot and a card with run time on it, closest time takes the pot. Probably less the cost of the engine. I was impressed when it ran over 20 minutes. A man standing off to the side asked if anyone ever checked to see how long a Briggs would run with no oil or that stuff? The world may never know.

 

I don't know whether it was the Lucas or the Rotella but I have had several engines go way beyond 1 million miles in trucks driven by different drivers.
It could be complete oil changes at 15,000 miles.
Many years ago I was involved with a major company experimenting with Shell and Rotella. They were using Rotella for 80,000 miles with only filter changes and had success with all engines except Detroits, they didn't seem to last as long.
I change over to Rotella for all my trucks and have noticed a marked difference in oil usage, blow by and engine temp in older oil.
I found that Delco was used up faster.

I still put 1 gallon of Lucas in at each oil change or if the engine does need additional oil before 15K and that is not very often all though I occasionally get a driver that checks the oil after the engine is warmed up and not putting the dip stick all the way down, so there is oil still in the head.

I have found that ISX engines will use oil quicker up to the add mark and then they just sit there, like maybe there is too much oil.
BTW I also use an extra long filter.