Universal oil for automotive use?

I see the feasiblity of formulating a universal fluid which could serve
equally well for engine lubrication, automatic or conventional
transmissions, third member (diff. gear housing, rear end), coolant, power
steering, and just about every application where a pourable fluid is
required.

We already have a semi-universal fluid: automatic transmission fluid. It
serves well for gears, bearings, seals, and even hypoids. We used to think
a high pressure hypoid gear oil was a must for the third member, but
transaxles are proving otherwise. ATF serves quite well for hypoids,
apparently. ATF has been specified for power steering pumps in the past,
too.

Upgrade ATF for engine use and we'll be there.

I believe water-antifreeze is the wrong media for cooling systems as well.
An oil will work just as well, in fact better. While water has better heat
coefficient than oil, it boils and freezes and corrodes. An oil cooled
engine can compensate by running hotter and more efficiently. There is no
reason you cannot run an engine at 300 degrees F. rather than 195.
Remember, engines used to run at 180 and even lower. Aircraft engines run
at 300 all the time and safely max out around 400. As temperatures
increase, thermal efficiency gets better and so does miles per gallon. An
oil cooled engine at 300 would be ideal: not too hot to cause oil
breakdown and not too cool to require a higher heat coefficient of water.
No longer would we have to replace radiators, ever, and the oil would serve
for life, unlike the present bi-annual flush & change of anti-freeze.
Hoses would have to be redesigned, but that's about it. In case of
collision, oil would pour out on the pavement. That is the only
disadvantage, but steam cleaning the road can handle that. All fire trucks
of the future will be equipped with steam cleaners, financed by a simple
universal oil tax. Besides, crashes that bust open the radiator are rare
for skilled drivers, the only ones that should be allowed licensed.

Brake systems and air-conditioners are the exception, but if DOT-4 is used,
brake fluid is good indefinitely and never deteriorates, like DOT-3 does.
Air-Con is a sealed system, also good for life in 99% of the cases. Wheel
bearings and u-joints are already permanently lubricated by a factory load
of grease. Therefore brakes, air-con, and chassis items can be considered
non-routine serviced so far as oil and grease are concerned.

A Universal oil will end the confusion on the store shelves, to the
happiness of the likes of Wal-Mart and other fine auto supply stores. We
will not have to be confronted with a zillion cans of this, that, and the
other when only one oil will do the job.

While you may have separate sumps for each part of the drive train, very
cheap transaxle cars might have a single shared sump for engine, trans, and
diff. This would save weight and make oil changes simple. One drain and
fill services the whole powerplant! As said above, everything else is a
permanent lifetime lube from the factory, so only one sump need be serviced
if this plan is implemented. The first factory that does this will
monopolize the market for e-z service cars.

Interestingly, the trend in the last decade is designing auto equipment for
a wider diversity of specialized lubricants and fluids! Again, the
industry is headed in the wrong direction. Re-read the above post,
Chrysler managers.

 

Disclaimer: I know I shouldn't respond to this drooling knuckle-dragging
troll, but the comment below is dangerous to people who aren't aware of
what hypoid gears actually are.

No, Nomen Nitwit, ATF does NOT serve well for hypoid gears. Transaxles
that use ATF for both the transmission and the differential gears DO NOT
CONTAIN HYPOID GEARS. On those transaxles that DO make use of hypoid
gears (Chrysler LH cars for example) a SEPARATE reservoir is provided
and MUST be filled with hypoid lubricant.

Hypoid gears are gears that engage with a brushing motion between the
driving and driven teeth- eg. the ring-and-pinion gear in a conventional
rear axle where the driveshaft (and therefore the pinion) is positioned
below the center axis of the ring gear. Most FWD transaxles don't need
hypoid gears, so simple helical-cut gears are used. In the cases where
its a helical-cut bevel gear they may even kinda look like hypoid gears,
but they sure as heck AREN'T hypoid gears- which is why those transaxles
can get away with ATF. Want to destroy a set of gears really quick? Use
ATF on true hypoid gears.

 

Most transaxles (all on transverse engines) use straight or spurr
geares, not Hypoids.

Never seen an oil pan rusted through? As for lasting forever,
petroleum pruducts deteriorate with heat. Wouldn't want the coolant to
coke up along with the engine oil on your 2.7, would you??

Where does the oil go when you steam clean the road???? It washes down
drains etc and gets into the water table. You would need a Hazmat
cleanup unit (which they already have to clean up oil, fuel, and
glycol)

Hot engine oil sprayed around the engine compartment in a crash would
cause a LOT more fires. And DON'T try to tell me hot engine oil
doesn't burn........

DOT4 is still hygroscopic, and it still deteriorates. DOT5 silicone
fluid does considerably better.

If you say it's good for the life of the system, you are correct - but
the system does not last as long as the car in some 90+% of the time.

Why do you think there ARE different fluids???? Because none can do
everything equally as well.

This was done way back in the late fifties / early sixties in the BMC
Mini, and is commonly done in motorcycle engines.

You can call the Mini ANYTHING you like, but EZ service would not be
truthful.

No, they are headed in the RIGHT direction, as specialized fluids do
the job better.

However, they ARE going a bit too far in some cases. If ATF+4 was sold
at a reasonable cost, it could be used in all the older vehicles as
well - just like the current spec engine oils can be used in 20 year
old engines in place of the older spec oils.

 

Are you sure? I'm concerned about older transmissions, more than 10
years old. I have seen a supposed memo from a Chrysler engineer or tech
suggesting that ATF+3 might be a little safer with the older seal on
the A604/41TE overdrive tranny that had lots of problems. I think this
was on the Allpar.com site, a fine place where I pick up lots of
advice.

Granted, the Chrysler dealers says either one is fine. But I chose
ATF+3 and the tranny has been fine. I'm also concerned that maybe too
fine a tranny fluid could be counter-productive, make things too, too
slippery.

Reminds me of a story where a German company got ahold of a GM tranny
to reverse engineer it. Obviously this was a looooong time ago. It did
not run as well because they smoothed up a part that was designed to be
sloppy kind of rough.

 

Way I heard it was RR. I think they licenced the Turbo Hydramatic.

 

Okay then. Sounds as though you were closer to the source than I was. I
could not remember which company so I said German, meaning really
Mercedes. Heh, that's DaimlerChrysler so actually on-topic for a
change! And wait, who owns Rolls-Royce now? Volkswagen, figures. A Nazi
era Dr. Porsche vehicle, so the Germans eventually won the car war. But
what's amazing was Ivan Hirst, a British soldier, got the Beetles up
again immediately after WWII.

My favorite story about RR is that either Mr. Rolls or Mr. Royce, I
can't remember who now, used to like to eat at a pub that offered free
food, so he would just order water and eat the food. Now that takes
ball bearings or insensitivity? Guess that's what you need to be rich.
Damn, I'll always be posting to this newsgroup instead...

 

It was the Hydra-Matic, which they purchased from GM at reasonable
cost. Packard was also a customer for the H-M and they were incensed,
for RR had done them wrong with their licensure of the RR Merlin. After
Packard re-engineered the powerplant at great expense, and freely
allowed RR free access to their innovations, RR turned around and
refused to license the engine after the war for the F-82 Twin Mustang.
RR felt the US should just buy RR engines. Instead the final dash
numbers of the 1710 Allison came about.

RR bought the transmissions and decided to clean up the rough oil
passages. Well and good, but then they flowed too much and the
transmission wouldn't shift. The bigger mod issue was RR's
incorporation of the mechanical brake servo onto the GM transmission, a
practice they continued with the THM until the end of "real" RR car
manufacture.

Anyway, the number of fluids in cars could be reduced to two or three,
by using one fluid for engine lube, braking,and transaxle, or one fluid
for transmission and hypoid axle, one for engine and everything else,
and of course a water based coolant.

Citroen used a central hydraulic fluid for power steering and brakes,
which on early cars was a vegetable water-soluble fluid, (like all
current brake fluids), but later cars used mineral based fluid similar
to Dexron or 5606. In fact Dexron worked in warm weather just fine if
you changed it at reasonable intervals. LHM is available for ag
machinery in the US now, however, and even cheaper than 5606-which is
stupendously expensive considering it's just dyed kerosene with
preservatives.

So you could get rid of brake fluid by using a petroleum oil which
could work for auto trans, manual trans, or non-hypoid transverse
transaxle. It wouldn't make a very good motor oil though, at least not
for four cycle engines with camshafts and flat lifters. It would also
not work for engine coolant or hypoid axles.

Chrysler used ATF as engine lubricant in its Turbine Cars, and GM used
a common fluid in its GMRCE Wankel prototypes and their transmissions
or transaxles.

Its interesting to note RR used GM transmissions and Citroen
hydraulics, BUT had vegetable based brake fluid going to the brakes.

So while a one fluid car is impractical-unless you want to go to air
cooled engines and mechanical brakes-_reducing_ the number of fluids is
possible and even practical.

Reducing the number of bolt and nut sizes is also practical, but
unlikely.

 

There are already some "universal" automotive lubricants and have been
for many years. They are listed as "fleet" use items rather than the
more specific lubes we're used to seeing.

A "fleet" engine oil would be spec'd for gas and diesels and was
generally a 30weight oil, but not is probably some multi-weight variety.
Might not be as good as a OEM spec oil we'd put in our cars, but it'd be
acceptable for a wide-ranging fleet of diverse vehicles. At the present
time, most gasoline car and truck engines will take either 5W-30 or
10W-30 oil, other than those that need 5W-20.

On the automatic transmission side of things, the Dexron spec fluids fit
almost all GM vehicles and pre-UltraDrive Chryslers, plus some
pre-lockup converter Fords. It replaces the old Type A and is backward
compatible in GM automatics back to 1947. It's recently been upgraded
to Dexron III Spec H and then to the new Dexron VI for the new 6-speed
automatics.

Ford has some different automatic trans fluids too, generally specific
to their vehicles, just as Chrysler has some specific fluids too.
Mercon is generally paired with Dexron III, but the newer Mercon IV spec
is different. I know of one loca trans builder that puts Mercon IV in
the place of Dexron in GM transmissions as it's generally suspected the
Mercon IV is part-synthetic and will take the heat better.

It's also suspected that the new Dexron VI is part-synthetic, but not
firm information on that just yet.

The reason for the newer spec fluids can relate to the way the converter
clutch is used. When we first got them, they were either "ON" or "OFF".
If they slipped, something was wrong, but then they were "analog"
controlled rather than computer modulated. Just as with a slipping
clutch pack in the transmission, a slippling converter clutch (if
modulated to do so by the computer) will generate more heat so a better
fluid spec is needed.

Check out the FAQs for Chrysler transmission fluid recommendations on
the earlier FWD vehicles.

In the case of the Ford and Chrysler specific trans fluids for
particular transmissions, those recommendations need to be followed when
possible. ALL of those fluids are typically much more available in the
aftermarket than when they first surfaced.

In the last couple of years, a "universal" ATF has surfaced from people
like Pennzoil. It meets the various Ford and Chrysler specs, plus
Dexron III. Kind of makes one wonder just how far apart these many
specs were to start with? Or how well these fluids will address the
specificity of earlier Chrysler FWD automatics.

There's TONS of lube information in the manufacturers' websites for
Pennzoil, Mobil, Exxon, Chevron, Castrol, Valvoline, etc. In some
cases, you can even detect a multi-vis fluid aspect of some ATF specs!

In the Mopar Police Car book, it talks about how the CHP maintenance
dept started using 20W motor oil (in the 1960s and later) for engines
and also for automatics. It states that the Torqueflites would tolerate
it with no problems, but that the Ford and GM transmissions did not like
it. Only rule was that after a high-speed pursuit situation, the
vehicle had to come in for a transmission fluid (20W motor oil) change.
In those earlier years, Chryslers had an inline transmission filter with
drain plugs in the trans pan and torque converter, so it was less messty
to do those changes than in later times.

As for the RR use of THM400 transmissions, when they polished the valve
body passages from their rough machined state "as supplied", it did
upset the fluid flow and shift timing from "as designed". I suspect
they could have recalibrated things for the polished passages, but this
got to be one "hands off" area for the RR people--just buy it and
install it without trying to make it better than "as supplied" (which
already met RR's standards for operation smoothness "as supplied" rather
than "as modified by RR" or RR would not have bought it in the first
place).

Chrysler and others have used ATF for manual transmission fluid, rather
than 80W-90 gear lube (i.e., rear axle lube). When Chrysler was doing
it, it was probably as a fuel economy thing as they were highly involved
in the Mobil Fuel Economy runs back then--a "WIN" was a really big deal.
If the trans got noisy, then they'd put the normal gear oil back in it.

GM has used some semi-sythetic and full synthetic manual trans fluids in
recent times. The semi-syn for particular Getrag designed manual
transmission so they'll last to specs and also have good shifting at
lower temps. In other cases, they are regular multi-vis gear lubes.
The Castrol SynTork gear oil is for the heavier duty manual
transmissions.

Now, there are also synthetic rear axle lubes too. Some that reputedly
"eat" or deteriorate silicone rear cover "gaskets" and require a paper
gasket instead.

Yep, more specialized component designs will require more specialized
lubes for durability and also supposedly improved fuel economy. And
this does NOT start to address the specific lubes that imported-brand
vehicles have to have to live a long and productive life.

And you thought needing ATF+3 was a major issue? Get into the import
side of things and things can change really quickly!

ATF and PS Fluid? Different breeds of fluids. Chrysler and GM have
spec'd specific PS fluids for years, since the early 1960s when the
modern style power steering pumps came out (basically). PS fluid is
more waxy, by observation, yet is still basically the same viscosity as
ATF, or a little thicker. PS fluid seems to be of a lower temp
tolerance than ATF also.

Ford spec's Motorcraft ATF for certain Ford ps units. It all depends on
how the systems rubber items and seals are configured. The Chrysler
products I've bought used (1980 is the newest) all had power steering
leaks and "red" fluid in them. When the correct Chrysler ps fluid was
flushed and installed, the leaks stopped and the systems operated
normally.

In prior times, it was accepted practice to "top off" a power steering
system with ATF (Type A or Dexron), but if the system has a leak, over a
period of time, the oil will be come more ATF than it was designed
for--hence the observed leaks.

Modern PS fluids are becoming more specialized too. GM even has a
synthetic ps fluid in some vehicles (i.e., some years of recent
Corvettes), probably listed as "Cold Climate" use. Many newer power
rack/pinion steering gear systems are more picky about fluid and
condition thereof, for whatever reason.

Oil might be oil might be oil, but it's not that it's "oil", it's where
it goes and how it's supposed to be used that really matters. ATF and
PS fluid might be similar enough to use ATF in the place of PS fluid,
but it's not the viscosity per se, it's the additive package in the oil
that is the real key. Just as the additive package in the Chrysler-spec
ATF makes it different and not really compatible with any Dexron III
product or Dexron+additive product combination.

By observation, you can short-circuit some oil useages, but in the long
run (maybe the 2nd or 3rd owner time frame), somebody's going to have to
pay for these lubrication indiscretions. And . . . "that dang ________
brand car is a piece of _______" will be the comment, rather than "That
stupid prior owner didn't know how to put the right lube in the
vehicle!".

Just some thoughts . . .

C-BODY

 

I can't tell from your write-up if you realize that DC uses ATF+4 in
power steering of many vehicles now since the '01 time frame (not a
distinct cutoff depending on vehicle), and recommmends re-fill with it
for many earlier vehicles (generally back to '98) that came with the
later spec. (MS9933) p.s. fluid (vehicles that used the earlier p.s.
spec. MS5931 would continue using 5931).

For more info., see TSB No. 19-005-03 - there is a chart there that
lists by vehicle and year what came in it from the factory and what
should be used for servicing.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')