Gearbox Oil Additive

[Des Garvin]

Hi Darren, If there was a single product or a simple fix that was heads and shoulders above everything else do you not think companies like Shell, Fuchs, Valvoline, BP wouldn"t be marketing and selling it themselves?The only answer to the above statement is "Should it reduce the total sales and their profits" definitely not. One has to only look at all large institutions to understand how they think!!!! Now back to the subject above re oil coolers what about the ones that are sold for auto gearbox"s from aftermarket suppliers in the auto industry. As Alan stated the oil needs to be traveling slow enough to cool. One of the questions I have here is what is the real heat producer in our re-drives? As I see it it is either metal to metal friction with to little oil betwen contacting surfaces due to the centrifugal forces in play or it could be the drag caused by the speed of the lubricant its self against non smooth things like the outer casing of the box its self. We have some fast traveling gears in play here like the input gear traveling at 4 to 5000 rpm (outside dia,s) and a output gear at 2000 plus rpm outside dia,s which when converted to foot per second (m/sec for they younger generation

[yoshi]

Hi AllDes - seeing you have the answers, maybe ill direct this question at you. So what exactly is this oil Stabalizer you are paying for, what is it composed/comprised off.? I"ll standby my previous statement of, you may well be very surprised if you we"re to have it analysed and too find out what you are actually paying for. Your statement of "One has to only look at all large institutions to understand how they think" is a bit of a narrow minded approach. I"m just offering info and opinions based on data and alike that i have seen over my time, I"m certainly not saying I have all the answers, infact I probably have very few, but what I am offering is a viewpoint from someone who makes there living and is actively involved in the oil manufacturing/testing and condition monitoring/reliability fields.RegardsDarren

[tonydenton]

hey des i agree with you and anyone else that has their own SOLUTION to overheating or the need for an addittive or supplement, or an oil cooler.

[danny]

you blokes, what a great discussion. I say again that I"m happy with the syntrax every 25hours and that"s what the manufacturer recommends, no worries for me. Works just fine. I"ll get back to my xray reports, that"s where the worries are believe you me! >danny camel

[Brian]

you blokes, what a great discussion. I say again that I"m happy with the syntrax every 25hours and that"s what the manufacturer recommends, no worries for me. Works just fine. I"ll get back to my xray reports, that"s where the worries are believe you me! >danny camelI dont have any problems with the product [ Syntrax] but I do

[Des Garvin]

Darren, The only thing I can tell you is that the oil stabilizer is a highly refined hydrocarbon product, not one of the synthetic manufactured products. I talk from years of on hands use in a number of different applications in the field where heat and wear is high in a harsh environment of the drilling industry where the operators don"t have the luxury of taking it easy when one has many dollars of equipment down the hole and to back off means it stays there. In the drilling industry is where I have found the temperature reductions very evident. As I understand the action of the oil stabilizer is that it adheres to the surfaces of the moving parts thus reducing the friction of the mating surfaces. Also with stabilizer you never have a dry surface start up due to the normal oil draining off when the parts stop rotating at the end of the warm/hot run period. I have read articles that claim that the reason for high wear in a lot of cases is the dry start situation after shut down, cooling,standing and then the start up in a number of days later.

[chook]

Alan, I was just wondering with those gears spinning around within your gearbox, if you are going to put a radiator onto it then you are going to have to drill some holes in the box for the outlet and inlet for the oil to circulate. If you got those positions correct and put the outlet hole next to a gear which was pushing oil onto that spot in the gearbox wall then the oil would self circulate through the radiator by using the existing spinning gear as the pump. There would be minimum pressures involved and slow enough to cool the oil as it passed through the radiator. More importantly less moving parts, less weight and things to go wrong.Just thinking outside the box!Regards....Chook.

[aussie_paul]

Allan, I don"t think the RAF water heater core would take the higher oil pressure.Regards, Aussie Paul. OOoops!!!! not engine oil to be cooled, gearbox. A bit slow these days!!!!Aussie Paul.

[tonydenton]

i would of just used the drain hole and returned into the oil level hole as a start . the oil level hole could be a "tee" so you still had the benifit of oil level hole. i can see what your trying to do though chook. that is looking outside the window but a window with a simplistic view. i think someone else said about the speed of the oil. might of been des.i remember in a helical reduction box many years ago on cane harvesters on prolonged high speed road travel the input shaft was doing 3000rpm and with all the other gears in there the oil was gettin flung to the outsides of the ROUND housing. and they were experiencing bearing failures on the input shaft. a local guru came up with the idea of putting a little spiraled flicker thing-e-o on the high speed input shaft. simply scouped a bit of oil and brought it back into play. problem solved. austoft were selling these reduction units for their own use and also around the world. took a farmer in need of reliability to make them reliable. it just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside sometimes .

[tonydenton]

i"ve also seen the plastic oil level windows and plastic drain fittings do the " melt thing" on hot gear boxes too. expensive enough on any gearbox but not healthy on a flying one. it"s a common thing on european stuff [ in agriculture] but like a lot of things good around the world , it just doesn"t seem to cut it here in aust. [ i just accept that sort of thing now] i changed mine to a hyd 3/8"b.s.p.p. plug. and it can be drilled and obviously then wired. i did that before i took it up the first time.

[yoshi]

Hi AllChopper - I have to agree with you, I would be more than concerned if the reccomendation from the OEM is to change the oil every 25 hours, in this particular situation it apperas we are simply expected to treat the symptoms and live with the cause. Des - I am more than willing to test the stabalizer and publish all the results in an open forum for all to see, I have absolutely nothing to hide and have no reason for any bias at all, I have also never stated that this particular product doesnt work, what I have said is that you may well be surprised when you find out what this product actually is. Tony

[Waddles]

Gidday Gents,This is getting very technical and interesting. I"m learning and liking it. Thanks.To answer a couple of questions: If I fitted a gearbox oil cooler, I was going to use the drain plug hole for the oil inlet to the cooler, and the port that currently has the overflow reservoir fitted to itfor the return. Thinking of a pump with similar specs to that of a facet pump. I understand that later model boxes don"t use an overflow reservoir so that port is not available on these.I"m currently using Nulon SAE 80 mineral gearbox oil without additives and it was with this oil that the box appeared to cool quicker. On Saturday, with OAT at 38*C, engine temp got to a tad under 100*C and the gearbox to 205*F. (They didn"t have a metric gauge in stock when I needed it). Last reading with the brand new Syntrax was just over 212*F. I"ll take a pen and paper next flight and note some times and accurate temps throughout the flight so that honest comparisons can be made.When I bought the oil, the salesman with whom I discussed the problem explained the basics of oil specs and also mentioned that many additives are not suitable for every application for the same reasons that Darren explained i.e. non-compatibility between the metals in the bearings and gears with the metals in the additives. For this reason, he recommended Lucas Oil Stabiliser. You"ve probably seen the little demo gizmos they have in auto parts stores for this product. Two columns of meshed nylon gears each of which can be rotated by a handle. One column has straight oil whilst the other has this stabiliser added. It is easy to see that the stabilised oil coats all the gear teeth and stays there even when the handle is not turned.It is my intention to run the current oil configuration until the next scheduled 25 hrly inspection, then change it, adding the recommended amount of stabiliser, then another 25 hours of testing and recording.Thanks again.Waddles

[Des Garvin]

ok all here is the true blue link where you can fallow through with you own investigations

[Russell]

So............we"ve done around 300 + hrs.....no probs.........correct ???Now..........we"ve got heat issues.....correct...... Pull the box off, strip it down......somethings going on within. Plumbing in a cooler with pump etc is not the answer......it"s not "the fix".Trying different oils/addatives/ etc etc............is not "the fix"Pull the damn thing off.............

[tonydenton]

hello darren, thank you for your reply. all very true and feaseable i admit. and yes your right i didn"t know that zinc reacts with white metal bearings , in saying that, i wouldn"t buy a bottle of oil additive that just said " zinc" . just as we don"t put gearbox oil in an engine either. there has to be recommendations that the supplier would have written on the bottle. every oil bottle on the shop shelf has. when it comes down to it the company who could afford the most expensive barrister wins. i would put money on that shell hasn"t ever paid out a claim, only guessing with that. if you could do me one favour. [ i"m only asking so you can say no] if or when you do post or release results. the print out should be complete.not; we couldn"t do the last part because.... or the tests needed further work.