Do you use Lucas Heavy Duty Oil Stabilizer or any other addictive?

Hi guys,

Did anybody use Lucas Heavy Duty Oil Stabilizer? i used a little amount (1 litter on 5G of oil) of it in the summer and it noticeably reduced the engine noise and i was thinking about using 10% of the oil capacity of the engine (0.5G) for the next season but found a few comments where people say it thickens the oil and oil may not be able to get to the bearings and some other places properly which will be bad. But a lot of people are using it in old diesel engines for years without any problems and report much less noise and oil consumption.
I have 1987 Yanmar 6PHM-TE turbo with 4500 hours on it.
Any thoughts on this subject?

Anton
m/v "Dora" 1987 Defever 41

Personally I don’t add anything to my oil. The oil manufacturers spend quite a bit of money trying to improve their products and I don’t know more than them.

Comodave said:

Personally I don’t add anything to my oil. The oil manufacturers spend quite a bit of money trying to improve their products and I don’t know more than them.

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I'm in the same camp as Dave.
You don't mention what you are currently using and your environmental temp ranges.
I might consider going up one grade in viscosity (40 wt to replace 30 wt) to see if it has a similar affect... assuming it falls within eng mfg spec range for the operating temps experienced.

What Bacchus and Comodave said.

I just removed almost 5G of old oil (looks like 95% of the capacity) and put 5G of new Shell Rotella T4 15W-40 in the engine. Engine manual says using SAE Class CC or higher. From what I found, T4 exceeds SAE Class CJ-4 and this is probably better than CC.
My thought is: no oil additives are needed for newer engines but 1987 with 4500 hours engine probably has a bit more wear and tolerances and the standard oil which was designed for newer engines can use a bit of help from addictives in an older engine.
i will be in Northen Ontario, Canada next season, from June to August. It will be from +15C/60F to +25C/77F which should not cause a problem with Lucas making the oil a bit thicker but I wanted to ask if anybody with a better knowledge on the subject has any reason not to do this.

Wynn’s Restore dramatically lowered the oil consumption of my Northern Lights 12kw generator. It went from a qt every 24 hours to a qt every 36 hours.

My oil consumption was ok, and the main reason to use this addictive the first time was to increase oil pressure (it did not help and looks like i just have a faulty gauge - a different issue I'm still working on). But I did notice a lower noise level. While cruising the coast of Maine, we could not be at the lower helm for long without noise cancellation headphones and it was too cold on the flybridge (May in Maine is not too warm). I added Lucas in Halifax, and with family and friends coming over I was too busy to think about it until a few weeks later when I noticed we never used headphones since and I measured the noise level at the lower helm which was 63-64dB at our cruising 1900RPM. As I understand, this is pretty quiet even for newer boats, and it feels smoother than before Halifax. This is not a scientific test because I did not measure the noise level and vibration before and right after to compare, and outside warmed up by June so that could be the reason (although the engine room temperature is always around 50C/122F after an hour or so). And think now, if just one quart of this thing made such a difference (allegedly), it will make a miracle if I add 20% of total oil capacity (which is 5G). But I do not know enough about oils and additives and was hoping somebody has experience of using a larger amount of Lucas for a longer period of time.

Between Yanmar and the company that developed oil to meet Yanmar and other manufacturers specifications there have been many millions spent. Don’t screw that engineering up with an additive. Will it make things a little more quite? Maybe. Does your engine care about quite?

No additives (aka snake oil).

At 60* - 70* temps I don't see the need for multi vis oil.
IMO Multi vis oils already have a % of additives to give it an unnecessary performance for that temp range. I would go to a straight wt oil and see how that is for noise.
Just one opinion and I'm sure there are others.
I would doubt if you can find CC oils any longer? While all of the new classification claim backward compatibility the newer classifications are designed for modrrn emission control systems that don't apply to marine use especially in older engine designs.
The links section of my Bacchus website has a link to a Cox Eng paper re marine engine oil and is one of the best I've seen as it is pointed at marine application vs the more common OTR or PU truck articles.
My guess... only a guess is that both noise and consumption are more related to vis increase than any "magic" ingredient.

If you look at your Yanmar manual they probably recommend straight weight. My Yanmar called for 40 weight CD grade or newer. Should be fine except for winter conditions.

Woodland Hills said:

Wynn’s Restore dramatically lowered the oil consumption of my Northern Lights 12kw generator. It went from a qt every 24 hours to a qt every 36 hours.

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Ahh, my Westerbeke 12.5 requires no added oil between changes. Must be a reason for this obnoxious behavior, maybe due to loading it up since day one?

"Ahh, my Westerbeke 12.5 requires no added oil between changes. Must be a reason for this obnoxious behavior, maybe due to loading it up since day one?"

Oil is left on the cylinder wall by the scraper ring , that layer of oil gets burned with each power stroke.

An engine that burns no oil simply counters the oil burned with blowby that condenses into the oil.

The acids and solids in the blowby are the reason for oil additives (to kill the acids) and an oil filter to catch the articles. And the reason for oil & filter changes.

On our previous boat, a 1981, the 3 previous owners had all used straight 30 with 1 litre of Rislone oil treatment at each oil change. The engine ran beautifully and burnt very little oil after more than 35 years so I continued the practice. However in our new boat a 1997 I have discontinued the practice of adding an oil treatment for many of the reasons given by others. Oil is much better than in the 80s. I have lived and boated in Canada all my many years and 30 weight has never been an issue unless of course the engine calls for a multi grade.

FF said:

"Ahh, my Westerbeke 12.5 requires no added oil between changes. Must be a reason for this obnoxious behavior, maybe due to loading it up since day one?"

Oil is left on the cylinder wall by the scraper ring , that layer of oil gets burned with each power stroke.

An engine that burns no oil simply counters the oil burned with blowby that condenses into the oil.

The acids and solids in the blowby are the reason for oil additives (to kill the acids) and an oil filter to catch the articles. And the reason for oil & filter changes.

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A healthy newer four stroke diesel should burn between 0.05 to 0.15 % oil per unit of fuel burn. For fleets oil consumption is carefully tracked to aid in engine rebuilding cycles.

My mains and genset have remained at the low end of the scale. For the genset this equates to well below 2/3 of a quart consumed between oil changes. Personally I'd start getting worried at 0.10 % oil consumption on a newer engine, excluding leaks of course.

No.

I don’t use additives. I just use a decent multi-weight oil in the range specified by the engine manufacturer. Oil analysis indicates everything is OK.

Waterant,

On my last boat I used it at the prescribed replacement for a quart of oil. I had 1987 vintage crusader 270s with 1830 hrs, motors loved it. I still had good pressure without it, but motors were noticeably quieter.

We just got our new ( to us) trawler with a FL120...haven't changed the oil yet, we shall see if I use it.

Regards,
Duke1

Worked hard at killing the 454 gasser in my assistance towing boat.


It was about 15 years old of gut busting work before the engine was replaced.


Had between 4-5000 hours on it....overheated so many time I can't count then..and not just fr a minute or two...talking 10-15 minutes while towing.


Once ran 2 hrs on the pin, never got above 3200rpm while towing a barge in a storm.


No additives, 200hr oil changed...with not even sure the right amount sometimes as the dipstick was all bent up....no smoke, ran great.


So just because you USE an additive doesn't really prove it's doing anything unless you can compare it side by side with another similar engine and check internals.

I'm sold on Rotella T6 synthetic. Can't say why but it cleaned up the exhaust, and cut consumption dramatically. Not all that expensive. Also, I don't put many hours on the engines as we cruise less as we get older. The boat goes into heated winter storage (Great Lakes) and with synthetic I feel much more comfortable leaving it in the crankcase and running it for two seasons.

What does your engine manual say?
If the oil consumption is more than to be expected, start planning and saving up for some serious maintenance.

I don't use oil additives. I use NAPA oil and fuel filters with 16qts of Valvoline Premium Blue, 15-40 in my 3208 T/As. I change the oil around 300 hours of running and take oil samples.

However:

I do use fuel additives. A gallon of Lucas when I refuel and at the beginning of winter, I use 8 ounces of BIOBOR JF in each main tank.

Is more better -- NO !!

What I interoperate the OP as asking is this.

he is saying: "I used this additive & it seemed to him that it helped".

Then he is trying to apply & Use the logic that:
---------------" if some is good, then more is better." ----------------

Let me tell you that the resounding answer is: " NO !!".

Additives do not replace oil & are not better than your base oil for lubrication of the internal moving parts of you diesel engine.

They are meant to be used in relatively small quantiles & not to replace 20% of your lubricating oil.

OK - if you want - So you could go to 40 wt. oil & that would be OK as long as your going to use a top quality DIESEL rated oil.

If you insist on using an additive, Use the quantity of Lucas oil treatment you say you used the first time. -- That will probably be OK - maybe.

BUT DO NOT REPLACE 20% of your oil capacity with additive.

Nuff said !

Good luck.

Alfa Mike.

thanks, guys. i put 5 gallons of clean Rotella T4 15W-40 oil and will not use any additives for now and will see how the engine will behave and sound next season because I have some data to compare now. i'm planning to do a few extra maintenance items in the winter so it may help to avoid additives to keep the noise down as well.

The mandates of the Air Police , requiring exhaust gas to be fed into the intake (EGR) is the reason modern oils contain a large dose of additives.

As few of our engines have this feature the old standard CD oil works well, with out the modern detergent package .
Single weight oil does a fine job s very few need the cold starting ability of multi grade.

Old style perhaps , but so are so many of our engines.

I use oil that is already stabilized

I run Detroit Diesels that are one oil change away from 5000 hours. Sine they need special single weight low ash oil, I see no harm in adding an additive when changing the oil. The only harm that could be done was to my wallet.

"I run Detroit Diesels that are one oil change away from 5000 hours. Sine they need special single weight low ash oil,"


SOON it will be broken in!

Not your question but an additive comment:

I did a with/without comparison a few times on the recommended amount of TuffOil into our 5qt sump (Perkins 4-154), added to Rotella diesel oil.

rock solid dependable 500RPM idle without, and 750RPM with. No other changes...

YES. I started using it in a VW Vanagon when the engine started needing oil more often - 100k + on a small 4 banger gas engine. It helped - a lot. Better oil pressure and less oil consumption and so far another 50k on the engine. The engine was a rebuild that is now pushing 20 years old.

Lucas stabilizer IS oil after all.

I was thinking of adding more than 1lt per change also to get the same ratio as the little VW engine. But it costs more and diesel is already 'oil' so I just add the one liter.