Safe to store new engine with "Break-in" oil over the winter ?

cruzenmike

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  • / Safe to store new engine with "Break-in" oil over the winter ?
you want to try that again and actually put the links in ?
Links are the numbers themselves.

OLD OP I KNOW, but....

As for the original question, I will not longer leave used oil in a mower over the off-season. I guess if maybe it had been started only once and it was being stored indoors with climate control I wouldn't be so worried, but if the machine has seen "hours" use, I would just change it and start the following season off with fresh oil, then do it again at the next recommended interval, should that be the 8 hour mark. See, I used to just run my mowers out of gas at the end of the fall and then start it right back up in the spring to warm it up and then do an oil change before the first mow. Granted, I never had any problems, but I read a post a while back discussing the issues of old oil sitting in the bottom of the crankcase with deposits settling and becoming gummy and the issues of oxidation, so I changed my ways. Now ALL of my equipment gets a flush and an oil change at the end of the season and that way all I have to do is gas it up and go the first time that it is needed.

I do also use Ethanol-free gasoline and I do occasionally pull on the recoil starters of smaller engines to "splash" oil about the engine while it sits dormant.
 

Fish

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  • / Safe to store new engine with "Break-in" oil over the winter ?
They work for me.
Just click on them.
 

bertsmobile1

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  • / Safe to store new engine with "Break-in" oil over the winter ?
1 Author writes hundreds of book by rearanging factory brouchures waste of time reading it

2 Waste of time unless you can not read what is on the side of the can

3 Link did not open

4 An echo chamber for the ignorant to reinforce their own beliefs

5 Same as 4

6 answers from people who don't know what they are talking about

7 Well ProfPS sounds like he is the only person on that entire forum with any understanding about oil formulations

8 Close to accurate but still shows a missunderstanding about what a detergent is

9 Tom is on the right track but sill is not factually correct

10 Briggs Web site with nothing about detergents at all

The above are 10 web links talking about non-detergent vs. detergent. Link 10 is from Briggs and Stratton. I believe they have made a few engines and know the proper oil to use.

Here are quotes from link 10.

"We recommend the use of Briggs & Stratton Warranty Certified oils for best performance. Other high-quality detergent oils are acceptable if classified for service SF, SG, SH, SJ or higher. Do not use special additives."

"Use a high quality detergent oil classified "For Service SF, SG, SH, SJ" or higher."

slomo

Those 10 links remind me of the joke that was funny when I was four
" Eat poo because 50,000,000 flies cant all be wrong "
One of the big problems with the web is rubbish keeps on being repeated till it becomes fact.

A detergent molecule is one that is homophobic at one end & homophillic at the other
To put that in laymans terms,
One end will attach to anything that is not itself and the the other attaches to only to itself
The homophobic end has a stronger bond potential than the homophillic end
SO the detergent attaches to particulates in the oil and totally envelopes it so the particle can not join onto another contaminant particle.
Because the detergent is slightly less dense than the base oil the entire contaminant particle & detergent cluster "floats" in the oil and remains in suspension till it encounters the oil filter .
It does not & can not scour the engine and remove all of the debris that has accumulated over time inside the engine.
For this to happen you need solvents , which are in fact added to a lot of oils for exactly that purpose.

A non detergent oil, may or many not have a molecule that is homophobic at both ends so it grabs onto 2 contaminant prticles, one at each end and thus helps them get bigger.
In this case this molecule is denser than the base oil to start with so it aids to formation of sludge.
Sludge blocks up disposable paper filters so you don't use non detergent oils in engine that have disposable filters.

You use on detergent oils in things that have a remote oil reseviour , like for instance a hydraulic system on a tractor , which is where ne of the misguided posters got the wrong idea about.
Remote oil tanks re generally called settleing tanks because that is what they are designed to do, settle out the sludge, allow the oil foam to collapse and usually allow the oil to cool .
Generally tey are found on dry sump engines and stationary engines.

Using a detergent oil in an engine designed for non detergent oil is worse than doing the opposite as the contaminants will continue to circulate in the engine rather than dropout into the bottom of the settleing tank.
Using a non detergent oil in an engine designed for a detergent oil will cause no damage to the engine what so ever, All that will happen is the oil filter will tend to clog faster than it should and of course sludge will settle out where ever it can do so , This is no problem unless it is allowed to remain in the engine till so much has accumulated that it cloggs or restricts the oil pumps intake screen.

So there you have it, what a detergent is, how it works & why nearly all of your citations are worthless.
Just so you know, there are thousands of detergent molecules out there, many of them occur naturally in nature, including in your own body .
So it is just a mater of the blenders finding the right package to add to an oil to achieve the desired results and hopefully not defeating each other.

The problem is washing up liquid & cloths washing powders used the word "detergent" to describe themselves when the actual amount of detergents in them is quite small.

It is also some what dissapointing that you chose to cite anything other than Wikkipedia , a resource that is self correcting or any oil company which would be considered a primary resource.

Way back when I bought the repair business I realized that there was a lot I did not knoe so I joined over 200 different mower , chain saw & similar forums.
Only 2 general mower forums were worth the effort of being on, one of which was this one.
Most were frequented by idiot ego maniacs with little to no understanding about what they were writing about but strong passions & prejustices , which is why I stopped visiting them.
I am yet to find an "Answers" site that actually provides good factually correct answers, they are all just click bait designed to drag you to the funders pages.
Because they are vy profitable they spend a fortune on SEO so they will always on the top of any search and the lazy will go to them first.
 

bertsmobile1

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  • / Safe to store new engine with "Break-in" oil over the winter ?
And to specifically answer your question the second post did exactly that
In general it is best to change the oil at the end of a season so it has clean oil sitting in it during the off season & hopefully no water or acid contaminants.
So provided it has not been started the break in oil will be fine.
The metallurgy applied to mower engines is a lot better than it was decades ago so I doubt that break in oil will cause the engine to self destruct over the off season.
 

Scrubcadet10

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  • / Safe to store new engine with "Break-in" oil over the winter ?
Those 10 links remind me of the joke that was funny when I was four
" Eat poo because 50,000,000 flies cant all be wrong "

s0251.gif

That is a good one
 

Hammermechanicman

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  • / Safe to store new engine with "Break-in" oil over the winter ?
I am curious. I have seen first hand many car engines from the 60's run with the older nondetergent oils and how they sludge up an engine. An example was my 63 Galaxie with a 352 engine. The valve covers were so full of aludge that the rocker arms left impressions in the sludge. About the only nondetergent oils readily available now are racing oils designed for a very short life before changing. I use 30wt or 10w-30w detergent oil in everything i service. Usually Stens. I have yet to see a problem in splash/mist lubed engines and now Briggs has come out with the never change just add oil engines. Are there problems using detergent oils in those engines or other filterless splash/mist lubed engines?
 

bertsmobile1

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  • / Safe to store new engine with "Break-in" oil over the winter ?
No
Does the engine have a remote oil tank ?
If you look at , OK remember , the old Galaxie engine, it had a really deep sump with the oil take off about 1/2 way down.
Rockers were adjusted every 5,000 to 10,000 at which time you are supposed to clean the cover /
I am old enough to remember those days when saturday morning when every second drive had the family car in it bonnet open while the dads did the rockers & points before changing the oil.
Meanwhile mum did the washing then every one jumped into the car for a "test drive" down to the pub for a fish & chips lunch washed down will a beer while the kids went for a swim .

Viscosity is really the only thing to worry about because an oil that is too thin can not maintain the oil film between moving parts.
We used to do work on a VW beetle that was raced.
HE ran dextron ( I ) in the box & diff cause it was worth 5 Hp in reduced viscous friction.
It got changed every race and it was full of metal but he podiumed every race .
The cost was 2 boxes and a diff every season.
He ran a weird mix of light oil & regular engine oil in the engine.
The cost of that was new slippers every race day and a cam every season.

The wrong oil will not destroy the engine, it just will not run as well as it should or last as long as it should
An old friend who rode 100 year old motorcycles always said " the best oil is the stuff you just drained form the engine & the more often you do it the better it becomes "
 

Hammermechanicman

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  • / Safe to store new engine with "Break-in" oil over the winter ?
The Ford 352 was an FE block engine with hydraulic lifters so no routine lash adjustments. The oil pickup was about 1/2" off the bottom of the sump. I wondered why 5 quarts of oil would fill it above the full mark. It was because there was so much sludge in the pan it half filled the sump. When the Nylatron covered cam gear let go and it jumped time i got to pull the engine and do a complete rebuild. Had my eye on a 428 engine but didnt have the cash for that.
 

logert gogert

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  • / Safe to store new engine with "Break-in" oil over the winter ?
Link 10 is from Briggs and Stratton. I believe they have made a few engines and know the proper oil to use.
yea they only made like....12 engines.:ROFLMAO:
they probably have a decnt knowelege on oil :LOL:
 
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