Lubricant Resource?

[Gary Lewis]

Jonathan - I think we are fairly well in agreement on this, but let me say it is a different way.  First, at this point I think we would have most of the questions covered if we had a 1978 or 79 manual to get the NP203 info for Scott, and your 1989 manual for the ZF, E4OD, and 1356 info.

So, what if it said "The following table has been created from information in the Lubricant Specification sections of Ford's 1978, 1985, and 1989 owner's manuals, which can be downloaded here to check the accuracy of this table: (and then there'd a button to push to download each of them)

That way this table can be an amalgam of the three, or more if need be.  But, one table could do everything for specifications.  However, the tables in Weebly don't allow links.  But, we wouldn't really need them if we color-coded the information to the manual, like red for 1978, black for 1985, and blue for 1989.

But, what do we do if we have a situation where the specifications have evolved?  Do we really want the reader to have to go to the Evolving Specifications tab to figure out what to put in his ZF instead of Type H?  How about another column that gives the latest specification, and still have the explanation of how things got there on the Evolving tab?

And then we need a table that shows how much for each device.  

[Ford F834]

I don't think the gory details of the history are necessary. I would use the latest specifications and color code them or mark them with a special character and denote the year of the manual cited. Bottom line is folks want to know what Ford specified to use, and the latest info is probably the best. More than likely most things stayed the same. ZF fluid may deserve its own special showcase since folks pour all kinds of stuff in them trying to eliminate shift problems and/or gear rollover noise on SMF conversions (for diesels).

[Ford F834]

Gary, I will mail you the 1989 manual. It would probably be best if you did the scans so that everything looks the same. It would be nice to keep the momentum going (and who knows when I might find an older manual) so I did some checking around on eBay and the 1978/79 seems to be the collector item years. Those manuals are a bit expensive. But I did find a 1976 F-series pickup owner manual with a damaged cover that was just a few bucks. I went ahead and grabbed that one since it should hopefully have what we need. I hope you do not mind, but I took the liberty of having it shipped directly to you for scanning. Once you are done with it perhaps Scott would like to have it to put in his truck since he has a dentside.

[Gary Lewis]

Mind?  Absolutely not. Ship anything to me, any time. 👍

That’s great. I can easily scan those sections and have them available to download if anyone want to check the accuracy of the table. And using the color scheme will be easy since there’s little to change.

As for leaving out the gory details, I’m for that. However, I was curious how we got from ESP-M2C166-H to Mercon and Dexron, so that was helpful to me. And writing it out gives me a place to go to get back to those little pieces of trivia. 😎

[Gary Lewis]

Jonathan - The 1976 manual came today.  Thanks!  On Page 120 it says:

Transfer Case - Four-Wheel Drive, and 4-Speed Manual Transmission: Above 10 degrees F SAE-50 (ESE-M2C39-C); Below 10 degrees F SAE-30 (ESE-M237C-C)

That would call into question what transfer cases were used in 1976, and that's answered by these snips from the 1973 - 79 master parts catalog, which say both the NP203 and NP205 were used that year.  So, I think we can answer Scott's question.  Agree?

[Gary Lewis]

Here's the chart and writeup I was remembering. This is from Doolittle Oil:

Oil viscosity is measured several ways. The three main ones that we encounter in equipment manuals are SAE, ISO, and AGMA. People are most familiar with SAE which stands for Society of Automotive Engineers. Engine oil viscosity is always measured in terms of SAE. Next we have the ISO system which stands for International Standardization Organization. The ISO scale is commonly used to measure the viscosity of industrial oils. Last but not least AGMA stands for American Gear Manufacturers Association. It can be confusing when you have a gear case that the manual says requires SAE 90 gear lube and one oil distributor gives you a pail that says AGMA 5 and another gives you a pail marked ISO 220. In terms of viscosity only, this is 3 ways of describing the same thing. In terms of viscosity they are equivilant. The chart below bears this out. The second dotted line goes horizontaly through ISO 220, AGMA 5, SAE 50 (engine), and SAE 90 (gear). Understanding the relationship of the viscosity scales to one another is useful but the viscosity of an oil is only part of what makes an oil a proper lubricant for a particular application. Other factors include the type of base oil and the additives with which the lubricant is formulated. Use the following chart to better understand the relationship of the viscosity measurement scales only. Please call for help to select an appropriate lubricant for your application.

I'm thinking this needs to be part of the lubricants resource.  One reason is that on another forum I saw post after post debating the SAE 50 that the owner's manual calls for vs 80W90 gear lube, which some said was way too thick for a transmission or transfer case.  But, looking at the chart 80W90 is actually slightly thinner than SAE 50.

On the other hand, and as said above, viscosity is not the only aspect of a lubricant recommendation.  So I tend to rely on the manufacturer's recommendation.  

[ArdWrknTrk]

Gary,

Somewhere I think we need a concise primer on the SAE grading system since that is what we have to deal with in the US.
..... well, that and gear oil & greases.
How it works and the changes made (say going from SH to SJ)

MANY times I have tried (and often failed) to explain the difference between CI and SE oils, how to use a viscosity cup, that engine oil is measured at *two* temperatures and 10w30 is *not* going to help cold starts compared to 10w40,  that ZDDP additives *will* contaminate your Cat and sensors (if you have them), need for assembly lube and break in oils in a new engine, why detergent and foam reducers are a good thing, what is an additive package, how to interpret a UEOA,  ect...

Often I just want to throw my hands up and send someone over to BITOG,  just like I want to refer people to Candlepower Forums and Daniel Stern Lighting when they can't get the relationship between watts and lumens, output per watt of incandescent v led v HID etc, that color temperature (k) is not actual heat, and what it means for *human* vision
And let's forget entirely explaining reflector shapes and diffusers.

But I get that most of the people I'm trying to address won't bother reading over there any more than they will comprehend facts being given to them in response to some very basic ignorance they choose to believe and spew on the Internet.

[Gary Lewis]

Yes!  All of the above!  But, let’s address the lubricant part of that this round, and will save the lighting and engine assembly parts for another day. (It hasn’t been a week since I tried to explain why you don’t put an engine together w/o assembly lube.).

Anyway, would you mind drafting a page on lubricants?  If I remember correctly, I mentioned you in the very first post in this thread as I knew you’d be the guy to have involved. I can do the formatting on the page if you want, but don’t know the details well enough to actually write it nor realize what needs to be said and what doesn’t.

My thought is that the resulting writeup would have a tab or two on the Specifications/Recommended Lubricants page. In fact, it might replace or augment the Evolving Specifications tab.

And, while you are there please take a look at the first tab. Last night I added another column to the table and started filling it in with “modern specifications”. Boy is that a pain!  Or maybe I don’t know what I’m doing or how to do it. My initial thought was to find the latest specification for a given lube type and give the reader that as well as the newest Ford product that meets it. But that isn’t easy. Do you have a suggestion?  

My intention is that the Recommended Lubricants tab will be as if Ford revised the owner’s manual for a 1980’s truck and used the latest lubricants for each of the uses. And that would include the specification so someone could go to the parts store and buy tube of grease or bottle of oil from someone else and know that what they are getting meets the needs of the part being lubricated. 😳

[ArdWrknTrk]

I think that's a great idea Gary.

Things like Type F are not hard to find but try looking for Type H.

Or look at the latest recommendation for transfer case fluid!
the 4406 was a nightmare until they specced a special fluid for it (and it's still a problem)

[Ford F834]

Gary, this is turning into a great web resource that all truck owners need! And absolutely yes the supporting info on viscosity is a really good idea. I had a very poor understanding of this until doing some research on ZF fluids. I read my brains out and what seemed like the "best practice" for diesel SMF conversions was synthetic 50wt ATF for big rigs. Jan and I each bought a gallon at $90 each. It worked okay at first in Jan's truck, but soon he started to have problems with noise and poor shifting so he drained it out. Evidently the ZF is a common transmission over there in other housing versions, so he used the European ZF fluid available there and was much happier. So there you have it... $180 mistake following internet advice on how to get rid of rollover noise!

[Gary Lewis]

Jim - Are you up for writing the technical part, meaning the discussion of viscosity and whatever else?

Jonathan - Experiences like yours is one of the reasons I want to create this resource. Fortunately Jim put me onto Royal Purple for the ZF or I would have probably had a similar experience.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Aren't YOU the one who worked for Conoco????

I'm not a lubrication chemist, but I could give it a shot.

[Ford F834]

Gary Lewis wrote

Jonathan - Experiences like yours is one of the reasons I want to create this resource. Fortunately Jim put me onto Royal Purple for the ZF or I would have probably had a similar experience.

Gary, in my internet reading I found several first hand reports of users claiming that Royal Purple made their ZF's shift like total 💩. After all my reading that was my take-away... to try anything except RP. Maybe it is different for diesel owners converting to SMF, but I thought that was just a noise issue, not how it shifts. If you had good luck with RP I will keep that in mind.

[ArdWrknTrk]

RP Synchromax worked great in my Zf-5.

People who bitch about rollover noise should just overfill their gearbox through the shifter with 80w GL4.

Noise isn't hurting anything.
Put some pressure on the clutch while stopped if it bothers you that much.

[Ford F834]

ArdWrknTrk wrote

RP Synchromax worked great in my Zf-5.

People who bitch about rollover noise should just overfill their gearbox through the shifter with 80w GL4.

Noise isn't hurting anything.
Put some pressure on the clutch while stopped if it bothers you that much.

I've heard some videos of SMF swapped diesel ZF's that got REALLY loud after getting rid of the dual mass. Yes, they were probably worn, but not done by any means... yet the noise was ridiculous, about like a rock crusher under the truck. I get it, it's a truck, and a rattly diesel one at that, but I would never put up with that. Is it really advisable to over fill a ZF? Seems like if the input shaft seal got tired you would have oil gushing all over your clutch in an instant.

[Gary Lewis]

Jim - I worked for Conoco, but in Information Technology. So, please take a shot at it.

Jonathan - RP Synchromax worked well in mine. As for overfilling, I think the main seal is already getting lubed such that a failure will cause oil to go everywhere, and more oil is just a bit bigger mess. But it appears that lots of people have done it with no ill effects.

[Gary Lewis]

Jonathan - I got the 1989 manual in the mail today.  Hope to get the lubrication tables from it and the 1976 manual scanned tomorrow.  

[Ford F834]

Gary Lewis wrote

Jonathan - I got the 1989 manual in the mail today.  Hope to get the lubrication tables from it and the 1976 manual scanned tomorrow.  

Kind of sad that the eBay one showed up before mine, but such is the busy life 😂

So do we have everything covered? All of the driveline components found in 80-86 plus popular upgrades?

[Gary Lewis]

I think we have everything covered. I just need to scan the lubrication sections of the two manuals and then figure out how to update the table.

[Gary Lewis]

Ok, I got the manuals scanned and uploaded to the Specifications/Lubricant Specifications page.

But then I started to modify the table and came to the conclusion that I can't maintain that table.  The widget on Weebly is atrocious - for instance there's no way to insert rows in the middle of the table, and I need to insert rows.  So, I found a way to insert a spreadsheet onto a Weebly page, and then I converted the 1989 lubrication table to a spreadsheet and loaded it up on the Lubrication page.

But, I have two problems.  First, the spreadsheet doesn't show up on my iPad, but it does on my iPhone and my Windows computers.    Second, if I get the iPad showing the spreadsheet then I need to the size of the spreadsheet under control.  As you can see, there's a lot more to the spreadsheet than just the data.  

So, please go see what you see on that page and let me know.