Glen-L.com

My end of season oil analysis(s) came back today. I am completely mystified by 1 of them. Big levels of Cadmium, and boron in it. In a '67 Chris craft that only gets dockside fueling. Starting to think something at the local marina fuel is questionable. Going from zeros last fall to 180 Cd and 95 boron is strange on a motor with less than 400 hrs. It is prone to boiling fuel in the carb after a hot run. Only thing I can think of is a load of funky fuel leaking into the sump.

Good grief, if it's not one thing, it's another. enough to make me consider sails a valid form of propulsion.

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Some plan to stroll through Saint Peter's Gates, I plan to go through them at 150mph... backwards... in a screaming ball of flame, with a glimmer belt wrapped around my head, and a NOx button in my hand.

caber if the oil has cadmium in it dont mess around with it put on gloves the stuff is extremely bad for you and most doctors dont have a clue as to what it is or how to treat over exsposure to it when you start to have problems. the usual sorce for cadmium is from paint so if you repainted the block when you restored the boat it could be leaching in to the oil that way if not then it could just be in the oil from the manufacturer i know cadmium is a mineral thats mined so maybe its in the oil when it comes up out of the ground and gets filtered out when refined not sure

I don't believe in oil analysis. as an A&P mechanic, I think it is basically smoke & mirrors; a hoax.
We constantly do oil analysis on the aircraft, sometimes the results come back with 'water in the oil'
Excuse me? A PT6a-67 that runs with oil temps in the 200'+ for 4 hours at a time and they say there is moisture in the oil. Excuse me? (this is not a water-cooled engine)

Another time,They said our engine was bad, it had elements of xxx, yyy, zzzz, and so forth and wanted another sampling. Sent another sample and they said it was OK. (what happened to the 1st sample it is the same)

Another time I sent them a sample from a fresh oil can, (can you guess) they condemned it. Excuse me??

Another time, we had a engine chit the bed, was making metal in the oil, I sent them a sample (can you guess?)
yep, they passed it.

After doing this crap for 30years, I have come to have a certain amount of faith in oil analysis.

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God Bless our Troops; especially our Snipers

The lab circled it with a big red marker.
Usually I dump all my used oil through a 10 micron bag filter and burn it in my old multifuel 6x6. I am thinking that would not be too wise of idea if the lab is right, and there are heavy metals loose in the stuff. I'm just going to jug it, and wait for the spring freebee hazmat collection.

Kens, You are making me feel much better about it... I agree they can be pretty random, I have had some strange results sometimes, you are reinforcing that train of thought. That is what I am hoping this is. They gave it a 185 ppm for Cd. Almost seems like that has to be a screw up. The engine is a freak, a Dodge 413. I would rather not be on the parts hunt for that dinosaur. No telling what sort of old scrap went onto those castings.

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Some plan to stroll through Saint Peter's Gates, I plan to go through them at 150mph... backwards... in a screaming ball of flame, with a glimmer belt wrapped around my head, and a NOx button in my hand.

where can the cad come from? crank bearings? rocker arms? lifters? oil pump? ????

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God Bless our Troops; especially our Snipers

This is a interesting discussion. Years ago when I did a lot fo diesel yachts we always did oil sampling. Some may not know that most yachts fifty foot or so averages about 100 hours a year of running. Of course the engine makers recommend that the oil should be changed at 100 hours. But anyway we would do oil sampling on stored yachts especially when many sit idle during the winter. We used block heaters on them too for the boats that sit idle in lieu of winterizing too, for a number of reasons. But anyway the premise was that even when they ran in four season climates contamination was created with the blocks expanding and would even naturally suck in outside dampness or even manufacture some sweating that takes place naturally from open exhaust valves after the engines are shut down.

We run an aircraft maintenance shop. We dont have a high opinion of oil anyalsis. If its done consistently on an engine that is used all the time it might tell you something. But random checks are basically worthless. An engine that sits a lot and then is run will have enough rust from the cylinders that the oil shop will tell you its junk and the next time that its OK. Cutting the filter open and inspecting it will tell you enough. Most of our Lycomings fly 2800 hours between overhauls and our continentals run about 2400 hours.

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John Amundsen
Monte Carlo
Winter Haven, FL

Maybe it will be done by G6 and maybe not.

I got curious, and pulled the covers. I couldn't figure out where it may have come from. There is a definite silver-metalic sheen to the oil. Lots of steel particles in it. One has to wonder how the lab (and I) missed that just with a quick visual on the oil The valve train appeared good. I have the timing cover partially off, and the cause appears to be there. Going have to pull the powerplant to get it the rest of the way off, There is a blued spot on the cover right at the "up" side of the link belt, the chain looks like it's Cd plated, pretty significant signs of contact with cover. Nylon gear liner is, well, basically, no longer there. I am betting the aluminum gear castings are high Cd alloy. They look like el-cheapo investment cast parts.

Was not planning on a rebuild of this. I am not a mopar fan. Winter project for me, Not that I needed another one. No wonder it was making more rattling noise than a skeleton falling down a tin roof.

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Some plan to stroll through Saint Peter's Gates, I plan to go through them at 150mph... backwards... in a screaming ball of flame, with a glimmer belt wrapped around my head, and a NOx button in my hand.

Too bad it's not a small block Mopar...I have a NOS HP dual roller timing chain/gear set I was going to use for a project long ago that I got rid of, and don't need this set anymore

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Boat building can best be defined as an endless series of
tragedies obscured by the occasional miracle, followed by a good bottle of beer.

Don't Dream Your Life, Live Your Dream

If you open the oil filter, what does the oil element look like? Is it full of metal particles?

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God Bless our Troops; especially our Snipers

I was paid to run my Vehicles in AK, so I had oil analysis every spring.
I quit it when we sent the same samples marked differently and the results came back with different readings.

Boron is an anti-wear additive and cadmium is part of the additive package that adds thermal stability to lubricating oils. In order for an oil analysis program to be effective a baseline has to be run on a new sample of the particular oil to be used. As mentioned earlier in some posts it is also best to initiate an oil analysis program when the engine is new. Some basic guidelines to interpreting analysis reports:

http://www.analystsinc.com/documents/BasicsOA.pdf

Note: This is a not a plug for this particular company. At sea we routinely use oil analysis for both heavy fuels and lubes. Lubes are generally done by the supplier, Texaco, Shell, etc.

"In order for an oil analysis program to be effective a baseline has to be run on a new sample of the particular oil to be used"
In aviation turbine/jet/turboprop engines we all use MIL-spec oil. Same oil, same standard; differing results as per comments above.
Oil analysis is somebody selling a bill of goods.

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God Bless our Troops; especially our Snipers

Kens we used to use an additive that was supposed to be a standard issue for military engines called Militex, IIRC. Are you familiar with it?

we dont add additives. just the synthetic oil. I on the militery side of the house, we all got the required oil S.O.A.P. and everything Ive run into uses the same oil. Maybe civilian side uses additives.

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God Bless our Troops; especially our Snipers