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Sun Jan 06, 2013 11:02 am

Saw some of this at a hot rod/vw event yesterday, the snake oil salespeople had a nifty bearing adjustable drag setup to demonstrate their claims. The base stock is synthetic and then claims of high zink along with teflon?! Just wanted to put it out there if anyone heard of this stuff. Sold for 7.00 qt similar in price to Penn or even Gibbs oil.

Sun Jan 06, 2013 11:23 am

I beleve clorox will do the same on that bearing load test, but I dont think you want to fill your crankcses with clorox...or do you?

Sun Jan 06, 2013 11:34 am

Clorox would have cleaned that bearing well. Yes they rattled on about the snake oil and I asked if anyone ran it in any air cooled motors and they had no history of such. It was on the midway, kinda like the snake swallowers and triple horned goats.

Sun Jan 06, 2013 1:55 pm

Schaeffer oil uses a moly additive which is a friction reducer. That's why the bearing trick works.

Sun Jan 06, 2013 7:10 pm

Cptn. Calzone wrote: Clorox would have cleaned that bearing well. Yes they rattled on about the snake oil and I asked if anyone ran it in any air cooled motors and they had no history of such. It was on the midway, kinda like the snake swallowers and triple horned goats.

Uh....I believe "snake oil" is a trade mark of Jake Raby's at Aircooled technology...or was last I heard. They work on exclusively air cooled engines and that oil was developed for them. Aircooled technologies and several other companies have been at the forefront of the only REAL R&D into proper oils for air cooled engeines for about the last decade. Check into it. Ray

Sun Jan 06, 2013 7:18 pm

you just cant get nutten by ray.
Ive seen that test on somant additives for over 30 years with the same setup,I remember when skeeter from moroso came by with about 4 of the big parts haulers for some semenars&part selling at our speed shop back in the 80's with it after they had just left the gators(where I saw them do it there also) I think it was problend, that time, then prolong, then zymax & somany others.skeeter showed us the clorox trick before hand as we were sponcering the event. I think we sold almost 70 sets of blackjack headers that night, and a few sets of hookers too. :shock: I kinda miss the old speed shop days, working & building other guys toys the way we wanted .

Sun Jan 06, 2013 7:48 pm

The term "snake oil" is from waaay back in the days of the old west, if not older. Jake did not invent the term nor was he the first to apply it to motor oil. Credit where credit is due, the vast body of work that was done on VW and Porsche air cooled engine motor oil (R&D work) was also done by Charles Navarro and his wife at LN Engineering, Jake assisted in this effort.

Mon Jan 07, 2013 12:24 pm

Ha, exactly.
Snake oil is a generic term at this point. It's almost used as a pun the way Jake uses it.

Mon Jan 07, 2013 5:02 pm

DarthWeber wrote: The term "snake oil" is from waaay back in the days of the old west, if not older. Jake did not invent the term nor was he the first to apply it to motor oil. Credit where credit is due, the vast body of work that was done on VW and Porsche air cooled engine motor oil (R&D work) was also done by Charles Navarro and his wife at LN Engineering, Jake assisted in this effort.

My point was this....if you are going to a VW show and there are "OIL" displays...and one is called "SNAKE OIL".....it may very well be the folks from either Aircooled technology or from LN Engineering.

I am quite aware that Snake oil is used as a general term...I also know its origins....but until the last few years it has not been a "BRAND NAME" related to specific oil made just for the VW community and now it is.

Nowhere in my post did I note that Jake Raby "INVENTED THE TERM SNAKE OIL" :roll:

Also the bearing test you are referring to is called the "Timken OK load test"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timken_OK_Load

.....you know.....TIMKEN.....the roller bearing people? It is pretty much the standard for the entire lubricant industry for testing oil film strength of oils and their EP additives.

Snake oil:

http://store.rabyenginedevelopment.com/searchresults.asp?cat=1837

I made this distinction because Captn Calzone...appeared to not know that:

a. the bearing on the arbor is not a "trick"...its an actual industry standard test. and....
b. There are some very knowledgeable and well researched people making an exclusive air-cooled engine oil called snake oil.

get it?

Yes...I realize its used by Jake almost a pun....sometimes referred to as called snake oil, venom etc....and is really Joe Gibbs DT-50 aircooled engine oil.
But the term snake oil is used so much that its too simple for some that may not know who they are speaking with....to laugh it off as a gimmick. which is what it appeared to me from Captn Calzones post.

Ray

Mon Jan 07, 2013 6:37 pm

Unless a test is performed per ASTM Standards, it is a "trick" (i.e. a salesman at a show). A rep for Schaeffer showed their oil to me for our drill fleet using the bearing test, however, he didn't know what the results meant (purely comparison). I would rely on more modern oil analysis methods.

Mon Jan 07, 2013 6:56 pm

Ray my org post was SCHAEFFER OIL I did in fact refer to it as snake oil and yes Aircooled Tech sells some oil by that name and I have purchased and ran it in an engine built by them as well. So I am familiar with the product in no way was I reffering or implying Mr rabys product which has a ton of research behind it. My contention was in the post to ask the samba community en mass if anyone had any expierence with this product, Schaffer oil and if it was of aircooled value. the show was mainly american iron with a handfull of vws one of witch was me.The bearing test ws nifty , not trick and I did indeed try and stop the wheel from turning afdter Schaeffer was applied. Just putting it out there, thought I would clear the air, sometimes it gets to stinking :arrow: :arrow:

Mon Jan 07, 2013 7:19 pm

there clutches were good back in the old days.or was that hays?

Mon Jan 07, 2013 10:35 pm

I didn't have any trouble understanding you, captain. I do agree that no single test proves the superiority of an oil.

Not sure if their device was actually any standard test - for a start, engine oils are usually tested at "typical" engine temperatures.

There are a number of standard tests used to test various characteristics of oils, 'though it can be hard to get that data from the oil manufacturers. If you stroll on over to the oil sticky there has been some data on the scuff test published recently and someone got hold of a lot of information on a couple of oils.

It's a shame you didn't get any real responses as it may be a new alternative for us, or it might be snake oil as you suggested (I got the pun, too. :( )

Mon Jan 07, 2013 11:49 pm

Schaeffer oil is good shit. I used it before I discovered Castrol Syntec in 1991. I switched to Syntec because I like full synthetic oil, but was never a huge fan of Mobil 1.

I ran it in my Mercedes 6.9. The first thing I noticed was the engine ran quieter, smoother, and about 15 degrees cooler. Before that, I used regular Castrol, and before that, I used to use Wolf's Head.

Tue Jan 08, 2013 5:51 am

Tram thank you an informed intelligent response.

Tue Jan 08, 2013 6:09 am

Schaeffer is know for cooler running temps in hydraulic power units in industrial apps as well (thats where i have used it), i have never used any of there motor oil products but the aw46 hyd oil would give us 10 to 15 degree temp reduction in our hydraulic power units over conventional hyd oils but i would guess that to be true of most synthetics.

Tue Jan 08, 2013 4:17 pm

Cptn. Calzone wrote: Ray my org post was SCHAEFFER OIL I did in fact refer to it as snake oil and yes Aircooled Tech sells some oil by that name and I have purchased and ran it in an engine built by them as well. So I am familiar with the product in no way was I reffering or implying Mr rabys product which has a ton of research behind it. My contention was in the post to ask the samba community en mass if anyone had any expierence with this product, Schaffer oil and if it was of aircooled value. the show was mainly american iron with a handfull of vws one of witch was me.The bearing test ws nifty , not trick and I did indeed try and stop the wheel from turning afdter Schaeffer was applied. Just putting it out there, thought I would clear the air, sometimes it gets to stinking :arrow: :arrow:

Excellent! :D I just did not know if you knew or were just using slang! Ray

Tue Jan 08, 2013 4:36 pm

Manx1173 wrote: Unless a test is performed per ASTM Standards, it is a "trick" (i.e. a salesman at a show). A rep for Schaeffer showed their oil to me for our drill fleet using the bearing test, however, he didn't know what the results meant (purely comparison). I would rely on more modern oil analysis methods.

Dont even get me started on ASTM.....There is no comparable test in ASTM's inventory.

Also, ASTM is not the be all and end all for testing. There are a great many material tests out there that have no ASTM equivalent and never will. I work in an engineering based medical facility that uses in excess of 4000 different materials and approximately 1100 main processes and about 3 times that in sub-processes.
A great many material parameters and related testing....ASTM has nothing to offer for.....for the entire industry.
ASTM only makes testing specs for processes that can operate across one main spectrum for an industry. When those same specs are applied across a wider variation of end usage for the same type of product....the ASTM spec invariably fails.

Back to the point....for what it is actually used for (the Timken OK load test)....it is 100% modern as there is no modern or different equivalent to what it looks for.....i.e. Galling at a micro level due to improper levels (or mismatched ingredients) of metallic or synthetic EP additives for lubricating oils.

You can hang around the ASTM website for the rest of your life...and there will never be a more modern replacement for the Timken OK load test.

You may however......actually find an ASTM procedure for properly applying the Timkin OK load test... :wink:

Oh....like ASTM D-2509 for greases and ASTM D-2782 for fluid lubricants.....both of which you need to know well to actually PROPERLY apply the Timken OK load test. But....both of these standards are 100% worthless without the test (an several other tests that do things like measure lubricant washout and heat tolerance).

By the way...its sad that "snake oil" salesmen bastardize the TOK test...because its actually fairly complex when properly conducted. It requires lubricant to be supplied at a constant 45 grams per minute at 80*F and run at 800 rpm with a specific leverage load to the bearing on the rubbing block. This varies by material and bearing type. The test runs for 10 minutes or until part fails by scoring.
At that point th test is repeated with new oil, new bearing ring and mandrel at progressively lighter loads until failure does not occur. There are a zillion charts made from this for various bearings, oils and conditions for properly characterizing EP lubricant ability which is all this test does.

It has nothing to do with washout, contamination, thermal breakdown etc. Its an EP additive test. Ray

Tue Jan 08, 2013 10:06 pm

shaffer oil is a great oil for equipment, don't know about air cooled though

Wed Jan 09, 2013 9:22 am

raygreenwood wrote: Manx1173 wrote: Unless a test is performed per ASTM Standards, it is a "trick" (i.e. a salesman at a show). A rep for Schaeffer showed their oil to me for our drill fleet using the bearing test, however, he didn't know what the results meant (purely comparison). I would rely on more modern oil analysis methods.

Dont even get me started on ASTM.....There is no comparable test in ASTM's inventory.

Also, ASTM is not the be all and end all for testing. There are a great many material tests out there that have no ASTM equivalent and never will. I work in an engineering based medical facility that uses in excess of 4000 different materials and approximately 1100 main processes and about 3 times that in sub-processes.
A great many material parameters and related testing....ASTM has nothing to offer for.....for the entire industry.
ASTM only makes testing specs for processes that can operate across one main spectrum for an industry. When those same specs are applied across a wider variation of end usage for the same type of product....the ASTM spec invariably fails.

Back to the point....for what it is actually used for (the Timken OK load test)....it is 100% modern as there is no modern or different equivalent to what it looks for.....i.e. Galling at a micro level due to improper levels (or mismatched ingredients) of metallic or synthetic EP additives for lubricating oils.

You can hang around the ASTM website for the rest of your life...and there will never be a more modern replacement for the Timken OK load test.

You may however......actually find an ASTM procedure for properly applying the Timkin OK load test... :wink:

Oh....like ASTM D-2509 for greases and ASTM D-2782 for fluid lubricants.....both of which you need to know well to actually PROPERLY apply the Timken OK load test. But....both of these standards are 100% worthless without the test (an several other tests that do things like measure lubricant washout and heat tolerance).

By the way...its sad that "snake oil" salesmen bastardize the TOK test...because its actually fairly complex when properly conducted. It requires lubricant to be supplied at a constant 45 grams per minute at 80*F and run at 800 rpm with a specific leverage load to the bearing on the rubbing block. This varies by material and bearing type. The test runs for 10 minutes or until part fails by scoring.
At that point th test is repeated with new oil, new bearing ring and mandrel at progressively lighter loads until failure does not occur. There are a zillion charts made from this for various bearings, oils and conditions for properly characterizing EP lubricant ability which is all this test does.

It has nothing to do with washout, contamination, thermal breakdown etc. Its an EP additive test. Ray

You read way to far into my post. :lol: Ok...I agree that ASTM standards do not cover everything under the sun, but I never said that anyway. FYI - if you want an ASTM standard for a test that has none, you may join ASTM and write the standard yourself.

Using a test that has an ASTM standard (i.e. ASTM D2782-02(2008) Standard Test Method for Measurement of Extreme-Pressure Properties of Lubricating Fluids (Timken Method)) at a show for comparison purposes only (bastardizing in your terms) to people that probably do not understand the test or application of the results, is a sales gimmick (i.e. a "trick"). It is what it is. My original post was simply a statement of why the Schaeffer oil performed well at the show since I have seen how it is presented. I have never seen the Timken results presented on a datasheet for automobile oils (including Schaeffer's technical data sheets.).

If anyone is interested in Schaeffer oil, here is their website: www.schaefferoil.com