thegreatgate

Talked to a mechanic who worked with Ford 20 years and supposedly an old mechanics trick is to use diesel engine oil instead of regular oil?

He said they had vans that the motors would blow after 230,000 miles using regular oil...They trialed them using diesel motor oil and they went 5xx,000 miles.

My 4.7L has a loud tick noise and he said it will also cover that up?

I described my problem over the phone (ticking when pressing the gas, no tick when not pressing the gas).

He said it sounded like the connector rods (bearings) in the lower half of the motor...He said it takes almost all day to take apart and put new bearings on and for $550 including parts he can fix the problem.

I might be making an appointment with him to come out and do this work but I'm not sure about the diesel oil or if he can get the job done correctly.

On a good note he said he just did this job on a 2002 and that he loves jeeps.

He sounded knowledgeable and said the ticking noise was more common on the 4.0Ls than the 4.7s...

I think he called it dextrol or desterol diesel oil???

5-90

It's workable, but not really an "old mechanic's trick" in the usual sense.

If you flip over a bottle of oil used for Diesel engines and look at the API rondel on the back label, you'll probably see something like "API Service SL/CJ-4" in the middle of it.

"API" is the American Petroleum Institute, the governing body for service specifications.
"Service SL" means "L-level" (the second-most recent) service for Spark Ignition ("S") engines.
"Service J-4" is pretty much the most recent service spec for Diesel (compression-ignition, "C") engines.

The service specification essentially governs the levels of additives - detergents, antisludge, antiscuff, and the like - in the oil, the base oil hasn't changed in a hundred years.

Using Diesel-rated oil in engines is a "new mechanic's trick" to compensate for the newest "Energy Saving" (API SM) oils not having enough organometallic antiscuff additives in the oil to protect the valvetrain. Nearly all new production gasoline engines use either roller tappets or roller followers for overhead camshafts, and the antiscuff additives are far less necessary. Since organometallic compounds can poison catalyst beds in the case of excessive blowby, SAE and API have mandated that the levels of om additives be sharply reduced for newer oils for newer engines.

Diesels still use flat tappets (spring pressures are much higher,) which is why the API SM oils are typically not rated for use in Diesel engines (not only do they have much lower om antiscuff additives, but the acid neutralisers and sludge emulsifiers just aren't there - Diesels tend to generate an awful lot of sulphuric acid in the oil - relatively speaking - which needs to be neutralised. Even with the newer low-sulphur Diesel fuels.)

The worry point here is whether the new V8-287 uses roller tappets or flat tappets - I don't know yet, as I've been working more with older engine information of late. Oil additives, combined with engine configuration, have an awful lot to do with engine longevity.

I know plenty of "old mechanic's tricks" - but "running Diesel oil in a gasoline engine" isn't really one of them. It's possible that running Diesel-spec oil in a gasoline engine will increase longevity - but most oils are combined gas/Diesel rated already, so it's not much of a trick (I used to work as an industrial mechanic about ten years ago - and even then, if I got the heavy-duty Diesel oil from, say, Caterpillar or International, it carried a spark-ignition engine rating.)

jronald

What year is it...................
The 4.0 inline is completely different from the V8 engine.
There is no real good reason to run the diesel in a gas engine with the variety of gas oils out there. From 0w20 to 20w50.
How many miles are on the engine? What weight of oil are you running now?


Ron