Double Your Oil Drain Intervals
New filter technology could more than double oil drains as soon as "05.
Jim Winsor
Executive Editor
Early next year, you may be able to safely double the oil drain interval in your fleet. Do I have your attention now? No, this isn't a teaser promotion or some pie-in-the-sky shaky technology or "mouse milk" additives. It's for real.
For starters though, being able to double oil drain intervals is not for everybody. It's specifically for fleets running over-the-road with certain big-bore diesel engines, using premium CI-4 or CI-4-Plus engine oils with present oil drains at 30,000 miles or less. This is just for starters and will be expanded later to more engines and vocational applications.
The manufacturer behind this new technology is Donaldson Co., a long-time major player in engine air and oil filtration. According to John Hacker, director of Liquid Filtration Engineering, Donaldson approached major chemical manufacturers to see if there were existing oil additive packages (chemicals) that could be placed inside a full-flow oil filter canister along with the filter media. The concept was slow release of the additives automatically to replace the depleted additives.
The main reasons for changing oil and filters, as we all know, is to get rid of combustion contaminants - acids, soot, etc. - which the additives neutralize and hold in suspension. Once the oil TBN (measurement of oil alkalinity) values drop below the TAN (oil acidity measurement), it's time for an oil change, starting again with fresh lubricants - the better of which, I'm told, are in the 10-11 TBN range.
Long-time oil conditioning and filtration company Luber-finer recognized the importance of TBN with the introduction earlier this year of the Zgard filter cartridge. This uses the sacrificial metal zinc to neutralize the acids in lube oil to help protect and extend the additive TBN. Along with additional high-tech filtration to address soot, this Zgard cartridge will extend oil drain intervals as much as 75% with an easy, spin-on package.
After three years of R&D, Donaldson is also to redesign filters, to include about a coffee cup full of oil additives in a new gel form. As the oil passes through the filter, it flows over the gel and slowly releases the fresh additives into the oil - sort of like a time-release medicine.
Another two years of field testing with major over-the-road fleets was done to monitor the rate at which the gel released the additives and, through regular oil analysis, see how the oil's TBN level held up. The goal, I learned, was to release the additives at a controlled rate so as to keep oil TBN in the 6-8 range, which is a good level of engine protection against acid formation and deposits.
Since each diesel engine make and model family has its own lubrication characteristics, Donaldson and the chemical supplier also had to tailor the gel package to meet those needs. Put another way, "one size doesn't fit all."
I'm told by John Hacker and Donaldson product managers that the average long-haul operator will be able to safely double the OEM recommended oil change intervals if there are no other operational issues such as excessive soot build-up. Eliminating every other oil and filter change has the potential to drastically reduce fleet maintenance costs, assuming a fleet's PM interval can be extended to match the new oil drain frequency.
Both Luber-finer and Donaldson are quick to point out that fleets that already have extended drains - 40,000-50,000 miles and sometimes more - are not candidates for this technology because the additives in the filter would be depleted too soon. However, the slow-release technologies are expected to be a big help to fleets with post '02 EGR engines, which have recommended shorter drain intervals than pre-EGR models.
In mid-October, Donaldson announced its introduction dates for the new filters. First will be Detroit Diesel 60 Series in December '04 (Donaldson ELF [extended life filter] No. 2500. This will be followed in January '05 for Cummins ISX (ELF No. 2501); and in February for Cat C-15 (ELF No. 2502). The new filter line incorporates Donaldson's "Synteq" synthetic filtering media for longer filter life performance that goes along with the slow-release additives.
Donaldson is recommending that fleets adopting this new technology use regular oil analysis, at least for a while, to see how the new lubrication package is holding up.
