Ranger doesn't like royal purple oil!

[blueoval52]

Anybody ever blow up there 4.0 litre v6 useing Royal Purple oil?

 

[BrooklynBay]

Welcome to this forum! What happened when you used it? Was this the first time that you've used it in your engine?

 

[blueoval52]

rpoil

went to texas last march to see my son off to iraq. decided before I left I would give it a try even thought I have been against synthectic oil all my life. Well I drove back and for about 4000 more miles and then let it set for 7 days straight. got in it to go for a short ride and it sounded like htere was no oil in the engine and everything inside was doing its best to get out. I shut it off , waited and restarted 3 more times before I could jhear myself think. It has multiple lifters/pushrod/rocker noise coming and going and a rod knock thta would make you kringe. I had no noise out of this engine ever. I got the truck from my dad so I know the history. It is all mine. It will set at a stop light and rattle to beat the band and other times relatively quiet. You ever hear any stories about royal purple?

 

[Trckmagik]

I have used it for years in my tractors, four wheelers, and multiple Explorers. Never had an issue and love it. I have used it in lower mileage motors and even some of my high mileage motors.
Doesnt sound like the motor oil to me.

 

[ilh]

Well I drove back and for about 4000 more miles and then let it set for 7 days straight. got in it to go for a short ride and it sounded like htere was no oil in the engine and everything inside was doing its best to get out. I shut it off , waited and restarted 3 more times before I could jhear myself think. It has multiple lifters/pushrod/rocker noise coming and going and a rod knock thta would make you kringe.

you just answered your own question.
the sitting for a week has probably caused the oil to leakdown so the lifters are making noise.

royal purple is not your problem. i know mechjames IRL and he runs RP 5W-30 in his 94 XLT (and his pulsar) and it's not detrimental to his performance. spectrographically the motor, i think, is screwed, but you'd better take that up with him. (just kidding james, but 110ppm iron is too much!)

but anyways, about yours. RP is a perfectly good oil... if its just because its been sitting and it was fine last time, check your oil level.. if its okay, start it up and run it at about 2000RPM to build oil pressure quickly. that's the only thing i can think of.

 

[glfredrick]

Any chance that you are running a Fram filter? They are well-known for bypassing oil and allowing a lot of startup noise.

Also, if RP WAS at fault, I think that they have a motor replacement warranty, but like the others, I'm reasonably sure that sythetic oil is not the culprit. I've run sythetics for decades and have ran engines into the 300,000 mile range with no problems or even oil use.

 

[gijoecam]

There's no way RP oil caused any damage to the motor. It is, by and large, a cut above the rest. (OK, it's on-par with any synthetic anyways)

The oil didn't cause the problem. I don't know what did, but it wasn't the oil.

 

[mechjames]

you just answered your own question.
the sitting for a week has probably caused the oil to leakdown so the lifters are making noise.

royal purple is not your problem. i know mechjames IRL and he runs RP 5W-30 in his 94 XLT (and his pulsar) and it's not detrimental to his performance. spectrographically the motor, i think, is screwed, but you'd better take that up with him. (just kidding james, but 110ppm iron is too much!)

but anyways, about yours. RP is a perfectly good oil... if its just because its been sitting and it was fine last time, check your oil level.. if its okay, start it up and run it at about 2000RPM to build oil pressure quickly. that's the only thing i can think of.

only thing i'd be worried about is some loose sludge got in the oil galley holes and stopped lubricating your valvetrain. my truck did that for about 5 minutes a couple weeks ago. scared the **** out of me, but i drove it hard and the ticking went away. hasn't come back since. i don't think thats related to the RP, but synthetics being run in older engines that haven't had it before.

i'm fairly sure with my truck when i switched over to synthetic at 263,000k (km) that most of the build up and stuff has been cleaned up with the extra detergents, and the synthetic is gettin in where conventional oil never has been. that is probably what makes up for my 110ppm iron rating. next UOA is in 1,100 km. can't wait to check it out.

but for me, i've been using royal purple for about 10,000 k now. good oil, and an indicator that it is doing its job is that the oil is dyed purple, and it turns brown when its dirty. within the first 10 minutes of run time on the first change it had already switched color. on my rebuilt pulsar motor, there is 900km on it, and its still grape colored.

only thing i'd be worried about is some loose sludge got in the oil galley holes and stopped lubricating your valvetrain. my truck did that for about 5 minutes a couple weeks ago. scared the **** out of me, but i drove it hard and the ticking went away. hasn't come back since. i don't think thats related to the RP, but synthetics being run in older engines that haven't had it before.

you might want to get a UOA on it to see if the motor inside is breaking down.

also on my uoa the TBN rating on RP was only about 1.5 on 6500km. That sucks, but thats what happens until your engine is cleaned out if its old. If you've done 4,000 miles on it, its time to change it out.

 

[blueoval52]

That wasnt the case. I have multiple lifters making noise and a definete rod knock on start up after a day. I droped the oil out asap and wney back to mu castrol. I've been an ase mechanic since 78 and i have never seen anyhting like it. With the castrol I have lwft it a month and no noise on startup. And if you told me this I would be skeptical. But this is real for me. This engine had been surfaced properly and didn't have a problem till I switched oil. What did I do wrong. I run 10/30 in winter here so should I have put 20/50?
I 've read the stroy for 2'8 to 4'0 and the weak spot os the tops of the pushrods and rockers. I had one of the good ones. It ran great at 130000 miles. Had I not changed I would have saw 170000 or more. I just don't think the product is all that.

 

[eureka24]

did you switch from standard oil to synthetic?

if so, without an engine flush the RP is gonna absorb any grime that accumulated in the engine and plug up all the oil passages.
also
synthetic oil has a tendency on higher mileage engines to then leak through all the seals worsening the problem, because on some high mileage engines the grime is keeping the seal together.

most oil pumps, especially old ones don't like the thinner synthetics, causing your fuel pressure to be low.

synthetic oil should always be run at the widest range, i personally use 10w40 in my bronco II, and 5w50 in my 300zx.

except i only use quaker state and mobil 1

 

[FineLineMtrsprts]

Ive seen lots of vehicles where people switch to synthetic oils in higher mileage vehicles and they cause engine noises. At times the synthetic oil is too thin and the worn engines tolerances have opened up and can cause the rattle's some here because the new oil is so thin.

 

[ilh]

guys,

where is all this misinformation coming from?

what you have said, eureka, about the absorbing of sludge and breakdown of seals, is correct to my knowledge, i find the rest flawed:

most oil pumps, especially old ones don't like the thinner synthetics, causing your fuel pressure to be low.

i hope the "fuel" part of this quote is just an error! but why would the oil pump "not like" the "thinner" synthetics? perhaps we should read on what the definition of a synthetic oil is:

http://www.performanceoiltechnology.com/AutoIndustry%27sBestKeptSecret.htm

This sentence sums it up: "Because synthetic oil is composed of molecules that are uniform in weight and shape..."
where does it mention that synthetics are snake oils, or they are thinner? All synthetic oils must follow the same API tests in order to receive the same API ratings. Nothing special for the synthetics, it's just the base stock.

synthetic oil should always be run at the widest range, i personally use 10w40 in my bronco II, and 5w50 in my 300zx.

this is ridiculous. just follow what your oil cap says... what benefit does your 300ZX receive from having a 5W-50? Unless you live in death valley 6 months of the year and 6 months in alaska, a 5W-30 would do it just fine.

At times the synthetic oil is too thin and the worn engines tolerances have opened up and can cause the rattle's some here because the new oil is so thin.

See my complaint about thinner synthetics and API specifications.

This engine had been surfaced properly and didn't have a problem till I switched oil. What did I do wrong. I run 10/30 in winter here so should I have put 20/50?

Your problem doesn't lie within the viscosity. mechjames summed it up: the only thing the oil could have done is dissolved sludge and started blocking your lifter oil passages (an already flawed design.)

have you had the valve covers off lately? does it look like a witch's cauldron in there?
i think we need some more information about what you did after the truck sat for 7 days. how long did you let the truck sit inbetween restarts? how long did you run the truck? did you check the dipstick? looked inside the filter? what kind of filter is it? you mentioned that you run 10W-30 in the winter... is it safe to assume this is the viscosity that is related to your ranger's problems?

 

[glfredrick]

I'll speculate further... That engine had some issues that "just didn't feel right" so a switch to synthetic oil was made in order to somehow cure that problem with oil -- and it only got worse.

I've seen a lot of guys go down that road. They don't believe in this or that until they KNOW that they've blown something up -- then the sky is the limit for what they dump into the thing in hopes of a miracle cure.

I may be really off the wall here -- and don't mean anything by my comments on a personal note -- but I've been in the business long enough to have seen this multiple times.

 

[aldive]

Seriously doubt the oil is your problem.

 

[Jarblatter1401]

I don't care if this post is old, just in case you haven't figured it out yet, the most likely thing is that the OP didn't have an oil filter with an anti drainback valve and/or an oil filter approved for use with synthetic oils