Thread: Broken down, dumped the ATF

Originally Posted by Jazzman

Well it appears I've been misinformed now doesn't it.

Can someone explain why my oil is black? I have rebuilt my engine, properly it was acid cleaned and i have new internals. I replace my filters religiously every 10,000 kms.

My dipstick has black oil on it and i run semi-synthetic Penrite HPR10 i once ran HPR 5 of the same oil.

If it's anything like the Penrite I'm using in mine, it's very dark when you put it in clean.
I've been using a white funnel to fill and the clean oil looks very very dark once you get it filled to the top.

However, on the dipstick it looks pretty good....

Originally Posted by Jazzman

Well it appears I've been misinformed now doesn't it.

Can someone explain why my oil is black? I have rebuilt my engine, properly it was acid cleaned and i have new internals. I replace my filters religiously every 10,000 kms.

My dipstick has black oil on it and i run semi-synthetic Penrite HPR10 i once ran HPR 5 of the same oil.

Wouldn't worry too much , even the full synthetic is almost black after 10000 k , as long as your using the hpr diesel type ,you'll be fine , is there any reason you've gone away from the 5 , as this might be the go for a newer engine which still has ( or should have) fine tolerances.
Rick130 would be able to give more depth regarding the oil subject

Originally Posted by discorevy

Wouldn't worry too much , even the full synthetic is almost black after 10000 k , as long as your using the hpr diesel type ,you'll be fine , is there any reason you've gone away from the 5 , as this might be the go for a newer engine which still has ( or should have) fine tolerances.
Rick130 would be able to give more depth regarding the oil subject

The only reason i use HPR10 is because it matches what the Land Rover book says. The reason i used HPR5 is because that was all i could get from the Land Rover Specialist in Cains when i was there, and that is what he uses in TD5's.

If you're taking the Penrite Diesel versions as others have said either will be fine and a good choice for the TD5. Penrite themselves specify HPR Deisel 5 but I've used Penrite Enviro + 10w40 for several changes, which is a higher spec, fully synthetic Diesel oil, giving me the confidence of 15Kkm oil changes.

But all the above exceed the original TD5 oil spec, so don't worry! Just change both filters when you do a change and you should be fine.

Every diesel I've had ((MQ Patrol, Defender, Rocky, Rodeo) I've always changed oil and filter every 5000. This TD5 previous owner seems to have kept well serviced @ 10000.. I'm now at 6500 and considering oil change after 5000 km towing the caravan. Oil is so clean am I being over cautious? Both filters every time?

From what I read, the centrifugal filter will do twice the spin on distance, research what brands work as some dont spin ,,,,,

So I contacted Rick130. His comments below:

Base oil type has little to no bearing on a finished and fully blended oils detergency and dispersancy. (not sure if they are actual words. )

It all comes down to the additive package.

Having said that, di-esters and poly-ol-esters
(think Redline, Motul, Neo etc full synthetics) have a greater natural detergency than any other base oil, I think as they are polar (attracted to metal) in nature.

Some of the best heavy duty diesel engine oils in the world are full synthetic, either PAO, Group III or ester in predominant base oils, but with much higher detergent and dispersant levels than any petrol biased oil.
They need to have high detergent/dispersant additive packages to battle the amount of soot in modern diesels from EGR and 100,oookm oil drain intervals in the big, over the road truck engines.
No full mineral oil can compete with those distances, they are usually toast by 30,000km in comparison, oxidation, dilution and additive depletion usually take their toll.

The TD5 has probably the very best oil filtration systems ever installed on a small production diesel.
The centrifugal filter can remove particles down to 1 micron and possibly below, it's extremely efficient.

No current full flow filter match it, regardless of cost.

That's pretty basic, hope it helps a little, oils can be a confusing subject, much misinformation abounds.
I'm just very lucky I've had access to some very switched on people in the industry who've educated me.

Originally Posted by Tinggu

Every diesel I've had ((MQ Patrol, Defender, Rocky, Rodeo) I've always changed oil and filter every 5000. This TD5 previous owner seems to have kept well serviced @ 10000.. I'm now at 6500 and considering oil change after 5000 km towing the caravan. Oil is so clean am I being over cautious? Both filters every time?

Every 10k is recommended by Land Rover under conditions of heavy use. So 6500km is still a bit under. I change both filters each time with Land Rover filters but iirc the book says centrifugal each time and external every 60k. Filtration is sooo much better on LR compared to most other light diesel engines.