Oil Analysis

A few weeks ago, when we were still in Texas, the ProDriver display told us that we were approaching the oil change interval. The oil had been changed in the complete service that was done right after we purchased the bus back in July, 2015, so it seemed that it should be able to go longer, but we had driven from Virginia to Texas and then back to Virginia and back to Texas. Since it takes gallons of oil to do an oil change on Miss Doozie (she *is* a doozie, after all!), we were not in favor of doing an oil change if it wasn't really needed.

With research, we found that the setting on the ProDriver causes it to recommend oil changes every 5000 miles. We talked with Jimmy about this setting, and he recommended that we look for information from Detroit Diesel on what they recommend for the oil change interval. In the Operator's Manual for the engine, it indicated 15,000 miles for severe use, and up to 30,000 miles for long haul.

page 86 of the pdf file at this link: http://www.ddcsn.com/cps/rde/xbcr/ddcsn/DDC-SVC-MAN-0006.pdf

We didn't figure that we were using the rig in any "severe" manner, though these engines are designed to be running down the road, not sitting in campgrounds. Jimmy suggested we might want to have an oil analysis done to see the current state of our oil and, as long as it was ok, have that information for comparison a few thousand miles further down the road.

So, we got an oil analysis test kit from Napa and hand pump to draw an oil sample out: 
hand pump:  http://www.napaonline.com/napa/en/p/FIL4290
analysis kit was something like this one: http://www.napaonline.com/napa/en/p/FIL24078ECD

The instructions said to draw the oil out when the engine had run 500 miles -- we weren't sure whether that meant 500 miles after the last oil change, or 500 miles in that day - which wasn't likely to happen with our driving of Miss Doozie. So, we decided that we would do it after driving a good distance. We tried to take a sample soon after we left the DFW area (either in Midland or El Paso), but we found that the sampling tube that came with the kit was not long enough to reach the oil pan in our rig. So, Dwayne had purchased a longer tube in the last couple of weeks, and we decided to try to pull the sample once we got to Rancho Oso. Even though we had not driven a lot of miles that day, we had been in a lot of hills, so the engine had gotten quite warm. We were at about 6900 miles past the oil change (I mistakenly reported it as 5600 miles on the form - which you can see if you look at our specific report via the link below).

Last Monday, we did the sample and had it all packaged up. We mailed it to ALS Tribology on Tuesday, and they received it on Thursday and set us the report on Friday. It reminded me of getting a lab report on blood work from the doctor - iron, magnesium, calcium levels were reported. The overall report said it was ok:

but what did all those other values mean?
Our specific report:
http://rs.alstribology.com/output/321673_17326757_d3xt4vnu2zyqij55yeadnh55.pdf

Back to the "source" - we emailed Jimmy, and he called us back with how to interpret the results. He recommended going to Lubetrak: http://lubetrak.com/
and going to their knowledge library: http://lubetrak.com/companysolutions/knowledgelibrary.htm
and specifically to the Detroit Diesel information (this is the one for transit alarms but the information is the same in the fleet document): http://lubetrak.com/lubedocs/alarms_02.01.pdf

Our sample was in the "abnormal" range for Additives of Magnesium and Phosphorus.
Viscosity was also a little low.

Our determination (in consultation with our "source", "expert", "advisor", "counselor", aka Jimmy) is to go to 10,000 miles and do another test and see how it has changed. We have the hand pump and will just need to get another sampling kit from Napa somewhere down the road.

Patti has typed up this blog post, and is hoping she got it close to right! Any errors are due to her lack of understanding or ability to communicate clearly - Jimmy explained it all well, but she may not have gotten it all!!!