Oil analysis as a predictor for cam phaser/timing chain/cam/follower issues?

[poppie]

Going back to the OP and his 15,000 mile oil change here are the FACT'S about that on 5.4 , can't argue with this video as it's plain as day, .

 

[poppie]

Will Brian the Tec in the video's here will start some arguments with this comment, Is the Higher Cost of Amsoil Red Line and Royal Purple Worth it Over Pennzoil Platinum or Mobil 1?, ,Need more proof about changing oil and how doing so save's you money over the long haul, Good luck with that 15,000 mile oil change unless you trade vehicles around 100,000 miles and it ends up being some poor schmuck's issue $$$$. YA'LL have a great night, Poppies out.

 

[inmanlanier]

WOW - quite the activity in a few days. Thanks for all who provide constructive comments.

Suffice to say that some of y'all (Southern term) might be amazed (unlike I) that the boys from Blackstone who did my analysis might even suggest that I keep the same 15,000 mile change interval. Yes, iron is higher than their samples, but all of those were at the 5800 mile mark.

To quote:

INMAN: Universal averages show typical wear for this type of 5.4L Ford, but those averages are based on a much shorter interval of about 5,800 miles. Aluminum, iron, and copper are on the higher side in this report, but the oil has also been in use for a lot longer than the average interval. The metal may just reflect normal accumulation over a long run rather than poor wear from a problem. We'll need wear trends to know one way or the other, though. Suggest changing this oil soon to play it safe, and resampling in another 15,000 miles for good comparison.​

I must have been super lucky that this report was just like the many other engine analyses I've done over the years with the same 15K extended intervals and premium synthetic oils - they were also (what a surprise) nothing of concern. Perhaps I have that good fortune of being a statistical anomaly with all my engines - it's amazing luck that ALL of my extended oil analyses have been similar.

For my next oil run, I'll likely pull a sample at 5K, then another at 10K to validate their assumption (yes - that would be those 'wear trends to know one way or another'). I apologize for doing what just might be a slightly scientific approach - forgive me if it breaks yet more paradigms - but it's what I learned to do all my adult engineering life with very predictable (and non problematic) outcome.

To those of you who have shared information on the subject of this post, thanks. For those of you who choose different paths and and also chose to make denigrating remarks to those of us who choose different than you (yes, very scary thought indeed), maybe you can think out of your box just a little going forward.

 

[JExpedition07]

 

[Motorcity muscle]

Great thread with a lot of good info. One post I noticed talked about shifting into neutral while rolling down the freeway and turning the engine off after oil light comes on. By shifting to neutral at that speed and taking load off of the engine, the rpm's will go very high before you can shut engine down and cause even more damage. Looking forward to following this thread.

 

[ExpeditionAndy]

@inmanlanier - I have a 2017 Ecoboost. I have 16,000 miles on it after almost 2 years - bought it in Feb of 2017. I have had Blackstone doing the analysis since my first oil change at 1000 miles and each of the other changes are at about 5K. I'm running full synthetic and I'm comfortable with 5-6k changes and don't mind throwing out good oil. You can check out the oil report looking at the numbers from a brand new engine perspective. I'm doing what you are trying to do with yours, I want to see if I can predict any potential problems by watching the numbers.

 

[TobyU]

On every vehicle I own, if I let off the accelerator pedal and shift to neutral the RPMs drop down to about a thousand. Idle speed

 

[Motorcity muscle]

On every vehicle I own, if I let off the accelerator pedal and shift to neutral the RPMs drop down to about a thousand. Idle speed

Not at highway speed, as the other post was speaking of.

 

[JExpedition07]

BTW 5150 Pops regarding your 18’, any details yet that you can share without consequence? Are you back in possession of the vehicle? I’m interested to find out more about the new style oil pump. Sounds like your issue is oil pump?

There may be some merit that planned obsolescence may be involved, or maybe it’s just keeping production costs down. The trend has been they design these things then sell updated service parts for the engines.

 

[1955moose]

68 posts just talking about oil! Can you imagine if we were talking about sex! Maybe 69! Ha ha.

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[TobyU]

WOW - quite the activity in a few days. Thanks for all who provide constructive comments.

Suffice to say that some of y'all (Southern term) might be amazed (unlike I) that the boys from Blackstone who did my analysis might even suggest that I keep the same 15,000 mile change interval. Yes, iron is higher than their samples, but all of those were at the 5800 mile mark.

To quote:

INMAN: Universal averages show typical wear for this type of 5.4L Ford, but those averages are based on a much shorter interval of about 5,800 miles. Aluminum, iron, and copper are on the higher side in this report, but the oil has also been in use for a lot longer than the average interval. The metal may just reflect normal accumulation over a long run rather than poor wear from a problem. We'll need wear trends to know one way or the other, though. Suggest changing this oil soon to play it safe, and resampling in another 15,000 miles for good comparison.​

I must have been super lucky that this report was just like the many other engine analyses I've done over the years with the same 15K extended intervals and premium synthetic oils - they were also (what a surprise) nothing of concern. Perhaps I have that good fortune of being a statistical anomaly with all my engines - it's amazing luck that ALL of my extended oil analyses have been similar.

For my next oil run, I'll likely pull a sample at 5K, then another at 10K to validate their assumption (yes - that would be those 'wear trends to know one way or another'). I apologize for doing what just might be a slightly scientific approach - forgive me if it breaks yet more paradigms - but it's what I learned to do all my adult engineering life with very predictable (and non problematic) outcome.

To those of you who have shared information on the subject of this post, thanks. For those of you who choose different paths and and also chose to make denigrating remarks to those of us who choose different than you (yes, very scary thought indeed), maybe you can think out of your box just a little going forward.

I was going to asked earlier in the thread if you were an engineer because that was the feeling I was getting. Sometimes in auto repairs a little bit of that's a good thing but sometimes too much engineering mentality can be a bad thing.
One thing I will note is that engineer minded people rarely throw parts at vehicles and I despise throwing parts at problems more than anything else.
People with little formal mechanical training and low amounts of experience with that particular engine or problem are the ones that tend to throw parts often grasping for a solution. They almost always waste money two or three times before they eventually get to the problem.
Oil change intervals and brand / type of oil preferences and opinions are quite different from doing mechanical repairs on a regular basis. The guys doing the work everyday do notice trends but they can't be highly accurate of the real conditions for most vehicles. It does help if your shop services the vehicle every 3 months though.
So many people do you what they call religiously change their oil but they never check it between oil changes and never top it off if it's low. Some people are running around with the oil barely on the dipstick when they get to their oil change appointment in 3000 miles. They say and think they are taking the utmost care with the oil changes but in reality they are doing harm by letting it run low.
There's so many variables overall.
When you take care of your own and you eliminate these variables it's a little easier to deal with. We have been sold one of the biggest lies over the past 40 years that we need to get our oil changed every 3 months or 3000 miles.
When people started regularly getting UOAs, we found out that often oil with five or six thousand miles on it was at 75 to 85% or more as good as new oil.
I'm not surprised by your results one bit. I have seen many similar over the years.
But then there's a point where preferences and even Peace of Mind comes in.
Some people would be happy with their new car engine to last 185000 miles. It would be perfectly content to use standard economical oil and change it every 3500to 5000 miles. someone else could not like to do the oil changes as often and they would rather use a high-quality extended oil change oil and change it every ten to fifteen thousand miles. Let's say for sake of argument both of these engines still got 185k miles lifespan.
Other people would say or be convinced that if they use the high-quality extended oil change oil and changed it every 5000-6000 miles they would get 250,000 miles out of the engine.
Others would want to use the highest quality Amsoil Series 2000 or whatever (that was some darn good oil by the way) and change it every 3000 miles so they can hopefully get 300,000 miles out of the engine. None of these scenarios are unrealistic.
The big problem I have with all the oil debate is that the majority of engines at least historically have not been worn out or damage from lack of oil changes. More have had spun bearings and excessively coked-up residues due to being run excessively low on oil from extended periods of time. More have been damaged from people driving them hard at high RPMs. An extremely high amount have been damaged due to excessive overheating when they simply have a leak, a water pump failure, or head gasket or intake issue.
These engines are all replaced or the vehicles junked early with nothing to do with frequency of oil changes or quality of oil.
Now with the modular Ford we did get a little bit of susceptibility because of the tiny oil passages that the engines have and comparison with some previous engines. But I still know 4.6s running around with almost 200,000 miles or more running 15w 50 Rotella because of valve cover leaks and valve stem seal smoking that have never lost oil pressure or locked up due to lack of lubrication.

 

[TobyU]

Not at highway speed, as the other post was speaking of.

I'm quite confused about what you are saying. If I am rolling at 70 miles an hour in my vehicle the RPMs are about 2200. If I let off of my accelerator pedal the RPMs are at about 2100. When I shift to neutral the RPMs drop all the way down to a thousand. Now if I have the cruise control on and shift to neutral some cars will overrev like mad. I have known people that have spun rod bearings from doing this accidentally.
As long as I have the cruise off and let my foot off of the gas pedal, the RPMs will never increase or stay at the faster rate when I shift into neutral.

 

[bobmbx]

I'm quite confused about what you are saying. If I am rolling at 70 miles an hour in my vehicle the RPMs are about 2200. If I let off of my accelerator pedal the RPMs are at about 2100. When I shift to neutral the RPMs drop all the way down to a thousand. Now if I have the cruise control on and shift to neutral some cars will overrev like mad. I have known people that have spun rod bearings from doing this accidentally.
As long as I have the cruise off and let my foot off of the gas pedal, the RPMs will never increase or stay at the faster rate when I shift into neutral.

Its all about the throttle. If you push the clutch in or shift into neutral but don't take your foot off the throttle, the engine rpm will increase but not rocket to the redline. If someone has the presence of mind to shift to neutral when the oil light comes on, I'll assume they will also lift their right foot at the same time. if you have a manual tranny, that move will be nearly automatic due to muscle memory [clutch in, throttle out].

And yeah, those early cruise control units left much to be desired. Thank god for the guy that figured out how to put another switch on the clutch pedal to cancel the cruise, like the one on the brake pedal. BTW, do they still put CC on manual tranny cars? I haven't had a stick in decades.

 

[jeff kushner]

I'm w/ you Moose....a lotta discussion but some good stuff too. Andy, you suck....16K....I"m at 56K and we bought our trucks only a couple months apart<lol>.

I think if BlackStone is "in" on the 15K thing as they obviously are, then the experiment gains quite a bit of validity to me. I'd certainly take the time to read their report if the OP chooses to post it. I don't want to read Andy's cause he sucks for having so low mileage but I also know that my buddy is meticulous about taking care of his stuff so I wouldn't expect to read anything unusual.

jeff

 

[ExpeditionAndy]

I'm w/ you Moose....a lotta discussion but some good stuff too. Andy, you suck....16K....I"m at 56K and we bought our trucks only a couple months...

jeff

 

[inmanlanier]

Andy - good for you, let's keep in contact with each other. Can you share with me what's going on with your fuel? I hope you've reached out to Ford on that.

Jeff - let's see if this works - first time attaching. The only number of note is iron, hence why I'll swap now and trend. I hope it's not a cam lobe

To others - way back in the early 80s I was running Amsoil and extended intervals. I got my analysis for free because my bud bought all his oil from one shop and that was a service for him. On one car I actually put in one of the bypass filters - and sure enough the next interval it actually made the oil a little cleaner. That was a long time ago when with the research my other (engineer) bud was doing I realized I no longer needed to worry about synthetics. Whenever I own a car, once out of warranty I've switched to synthetics and extended drains. The only issue I had was a bearing knock on a Lincoln I got from my folks - shortly after getting said Lincoln the oil plug fell out of the pan (my wife immediately shut down and called me (oil light, arghh!). I found the plug - it was a 'repair' plug - they had stripped the pan threads. I towed it home and replaced the pan. The car ran fine for another 3 years until the bearing knock. When I ran extended intervals I used to change the filters at 5K, then 7.5K, then my (engineer) bud's research convinced me I was wasting my time since the filters were fully capable of running to 15K, expecially with today's cylinder wall quality, ring technology, filter size, efficiency, etc. BTW - the plug failure we called in our industry 'maintenance induced failures' - you got that right - the more we had them turn wrenches, the more chance of failures induced due to wrench turners - hence our strive for the right balance between doing when needed or unnecessary work where you set yourself up for someone to cause damage.

I'll try and remember to post my 5K sample (perhaps under a different heading). That will likely be a year or so.

See attached per your request, Jeff.

 

[JExpedition07]

Maybe if you have a large premium aftermarket filter it can run the duration of an extended intervals. A typical Motorcraft filter will not run efficiently more than the duration of the factory specified oil change. A fully synthetic top shelf? Maybe.

 

[1955moose]

5.0 pushrod motors are famous for stripping out the drain plug. Probably more the kid at oil changer place using his bosses air impact on it. Tightening a bolt to 100 ft lbs when 17-20 is fine, will have you putting in a piggy back drain plug every time.

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[inmanlanier]

Anyone checked out the 'gasket' material on those tensioner covers?

My guess is that this material is the culprit of all this related nonsense since w/o it's failures we likely have no reduction in oiling. I would also guess that the bean counter got involved. Just like the last version of the Chevrolet Z06 designed for track day use at 85 degrees F for cooling (yeah, right) - my guess is that the elastomers chosen by Ford may be marginal for this service. The problem with all the elastomers that have capability above 300 degrees or so is that they start getting expensive. I once had to design an O-ring for a stop-gap repair, nominal operating temperature of 450 degrees F (water). I selected a Flourocarbon variant because it's the highest rating, but wow is that stuff expensive. The Flourocarbon worked flawlessly for 36 months service before we implemented a permanent repair to the joint.

I have data on various elastomers, their service properties and susceptibilities (fluids/temperatures). I don't wish to post this since it's under a proprietary marker - if anyone knows the material, however I can assess the selection. If I were to guess they'd pick nitrile - it's very good in oils and fuels. The downside is that it has an upper temperature service limit of 300 F. All it would take is a low oil level and some good towing and the temps likely will exceed 300F for extended duration (oil quantity oftimes selected for cooling, amount of cooling dependent on the surface area of the pan that the oil touches to dissipate heat). Flourosilicone Rubber would be better in that it can withstand 350, with higher temps acceptable for short periods of time.

On a related note, do we know the material of the aftermarket tensioner cover gaskets. If someone has any of these I may be able to get it analyzed and find out.

And yes, failure analysis was one of the things we did as a regular basis in my usta career. One of my other buds would routinely work with me for improvement opportunities of repeat failures) - he was our materials expert - scanning electron microscope as one of his tools.

 

[JExpedition07]

I’d say you are correct in that blown tensioner gaskets are what often cause oil pressure issues to the top end which manifest themselves with phaser failures on the 5.4L. Also broken tensioner pieces clogging the oil pickup can contribute as well.