How to protect your rockers

[Ronmar]

I agree with Tom, a gearbox is not really a sling lubed application.  The thicker oil is carried along from the teeth of the gears that are immersed to the upper gears mostly by direct transfer.  Most autoparts stores have a Lucas oils gear oil additive demo on the counter.  A couple of plastic geartrains in a split clear reservoir with hand cranks to show how their additive enhances the already sticky nature of gearbox oil to carry it along to the upper gears.

Cgwymp also brings up a good point.  How well the oil deals with products of combustion would be another concern...

[playdiesel]

Glad to see others got a laugh out of that. Globbing that non-flowing grease all over the place does not put one drop of lube where it is needed, on the stems. If a person oils the rockers and lets some collect under the springs as he is supposed to it does find it's way to the guides, at least mine do, maybe not in Washington Sate??.

If a person is seriously worried about it just drill a couple holes in the valve cover above the valve stems and buy two drip oilers like this one from McMaster-Carr or on flea bay and live happily ever after.

[mike90045]

Where did you see the brass oiler - all the McMasterCarr ones are aluminum

[sailawayrb]

I would certainly agree that a car transmission is not a sling lube application.  Tom, not sure how you got that impression from what I wrote?  By similar application I just meant heavy weight oil is good for gears (in car transmissions or Lister crankcases)...for better lubrication and less wear. 

Provided that the dipper doesn't fail, I have little doubt the heavy weight oil would sling just fine at operational Lister crankcase temps.  I reckon someone will have to try this out to prove this one way or the other.

If one changes their oil every couple hundred hours I don't think combustion products would be a problem either.  Again, I reckon someone will have to try this out to prove this one way or the other too.

I would be concerned about cold starts...and again, I would be very concerned about having a dipper failure (especially a hollow dipper). 

Bob B.

[Derb]

Hi Fellas. As a mechanic, I would bet a weeks wages that running a gear oil in the crankcase of any diesel engine would eventually  end in engine failure. I would predict that apart from the terrible stink, smoke and noise, it would slowly bind up and finally seize - it would be a toss-up whether the bearings or piston/rings gave up the ghost 1st. It would be a laugh to put one on load and run a sweepstake on the time it took to fail though. Cheers, Derb.

[sailawayrb]

Well, unless this guy is another minister of the con game, we have at least one data point that indicates one can successfully run heavy weight oil in a Lister.  I don't see any revenue trail leading into his pockets so I don't think he is a con artist.  I suppose he could just be a nut case.

Beliefs are often proven wrong and talk around beliefs is cheap and worthless.  The Lister engine designers probably didn't know 0.1% of what we know about engine design today so one has to take all their recommendations with a grain of salt too.  And we have already proven some of their recommendations to be without any merit.  What we really need is factual data obtained by actually running heavy weight oil in a Lister engine.

Are we certain he is using copper tubing for his injector line?  He could be using cunifer (copper nickel alloy) which would look like copper but would work perfectly fine:

http://store.fedhillusa.com/britishgirlingbrakelinenutsandfittings.aspx

While putting grease on the rockers is far too ugly a prospect for me (I need beauty and perfection in addition to function...), I can't just dismiss outright that this would not work too.  That much grease would have insulating properties.  There is a fair amount heat flux coming up from the head.  Therefore, I would expect that the temp of the rockers would be significantly hotter than they would normally be...perhaps hot enough to even melt the grease in the vicinity of the rockers.  Again, just speculation and real data is what's needed.

Bob B.

[cgwymp]

Well, unless this guy is another minister of the con game, we have at least one data point that indicates one can successfully run heavy weight oil in a Lister.  I don't see any revenue trail leading into his pockets so I don't think he is a con artist.  I suppose he could just be a nut case.

It's is Willem from Old Style Listers, so I'm thinking a little of both....

[sailawayrb]

Willem...then most certainly both...and please forget everything I wrote.   

Bob B.

[playdiesel]

Where did you see the brass oiler - all the McMasterCarr ones are aluminum

Just a representative photo for those who don't know what one is, sorry.  Brass oilers must be sources on the used market.

[fabricator]

This guy is just plain nuts, to say modern oils won't work in an engine of old design is just plain dumb, if it had been available when the original listers were built they would have probably have called for Shell Rotella 15w40 in the crank case.
If you are gonna glob grease on like that you better have more that the cover on it, you better have it totally sealed, or dust and bugs and everything you can imagine is gonna collect in it then eventually get in the valve train, eh, to each his own I guess.
BTW, mines been running pretty much 24/7 since December with !Gasp! modern oil in it.

[quinnf]

Bob, thanks for posting that last.  I was beginning to worry about you.     Thought perhaps the charged particles from the solar flare were disrupting your normally fine cognitive abilities.

Mebbe this is a good case for legislating point-of-sale controls on video cameras.  Perhaps an I.Q. test should be mandatory, or at least a breathalyzer.  Something . . .

Quinn