Engine oil analysis

Ken13559

Ken13559

.
Oct 29, 2005
2,362
Hunter Marine 326 303 Singapore
I've found a Lab that can do engine oil analysis and interpretation of results. I've following questions that I hope someone could help answered:
1. what will I and do I want to know from the oil analysis?
2. when do I collect the oil?
a) anytime after warm up (even when oil is new)
b) just before oil change (after warm up of old oil in engine)
c) how much oil is needed for the analysis?

Thanks.

Ken
 
Allan12210

Allan12210

.
Jan 22, 2008
1,666
Hunter 34 Alameda CA
Ken13559 said:
I've found a Lab that can do engine oil analysis and interpretation of results. I've following questions that I hope someone could help answered:
1. what will I and do I want to know from the oil analysis?

Ask yourself "Is there any reason to suspect anything is currently wrong (unusual smoke, hard starting, water in oil, oil in water, overheating, etc.)" If no current problems, then oil analysis may be purely academic and you'll have something else to agonize over trying to understand the results.


2. when do I collect the oil?
a) anytime after warm up (even when oil is new)
b) just before oil change (after warm up of old oil in engine)
c) how much oil is needed for the analysis?

I would say b when concentration of wear products is greatest. I would think with modern automated chemical analysis that 10 cc will be plenty.

Again, unless you feel something is really wrong like the engine was run without oil, or oil not changed for a long time or its got 12-15 thousand hours, it may be a purely academic exercise. You will most likely see the common metals of normal wear until they progress through the point of no return and something shows up that shouldn't be there. An example would be the presence of copper after the babbit layer of crankshaft bearings have worn out. A normally maintained engine is going to take a long time to get to that point.


Thanks.

Ken
Click to expand
My comments in red. Allan
 
kloudie1

kloudie1

.
Nov 6, 2006
10,095
Hunter 34 Mandeville Louisiana
I agree with Allan.. we used oil analysis to watch large industrial engines and without a "from new" and continuing analysis, the results are interesting but not very useful. For us, the coolant was shared between four large engines so it was the only way we could see a coolant leak into oil..
Again for a small diesel, the info would be interesting but to be useful, it takes a few years of sample analysis..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Top Bottom