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PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES - A LUBE STORY.

Before the rise of the internal combustion engine, lubrication was a simple affair. The earliest mechanical devices like steam engines and carts, relied on natural oils and animal fat to reduce friction between moving parts. In the 1800s, whale oil was widely used, especially for delicate machinery, but it wasn’t exactly sustainable and is also one of the reasons whale populations are in the state they’re in.  Other lubricants included rendered animal fats called tallow and vegetable oils, which worked for basic things but the stuff didn’t have any longevity or proper heat management. In 1859, Edwin Drake’s oil well in Pennsylvania kicked off the petroleum industry, leading to the discovery that crude oil could be refined into a variety of useful products, including lubricants. Early engine oils were terrible but better than animal fats, and the stuff sludged up and didn’t work consistently. More refined oil only popped up in the 1870s because steam engines and combustion engines needed better quality lube. When additives for oils were created, it changed the game in the 1920s-1930s and that’s when multi-grade oils that worked in hot or cold conditions entered the chat. World War II pushed mechanical technology to its limits, lubricant science leapt forward. Oils included detergents to keep engines clean, dispersants to prevent sludge buildup, and anti-wear additives to reduce metal-on-metal damage. By the 1970s engines became more powerful and emissions regulations tightened, and synthetic oil became a thing, trickle-down tech from jet engines. Companies like Mobil pioneered synthetic oil for consumer vehicles, with Mobil 1 launching in the 1970s. Synthetic oil offered better stability at high temperatures, improved cold-weather performance, and reduced engine wear.

These days engine oil is a big thing, a multi-billion-dollar industry because every car, truck, boat, or plane needs it. Car people are weird, some will spend loads on a cool new car but skimp on oil when it comes to service time and are happy to use the cheapest house brand off-the-shelf stuff from the likes of Makro or Autozone. Some will even skip oil services altogether claiming the oil still looks good when they check it. Others are pedantic, they will only use the exact specification oil the car needs, and they ignore manufacturer service intervals, chopping them in half just to make sure the engine is as happy as can be. We fall into the latter category. Even when times are tough, I’ll still spend silly money on my favourite fully synthetic oil from Liqui-Moly. With EVs becoming a thing now, the need for oil is different because there’s no moving-part motor anymore. That got us thinking about what kind of oil EVs need, and then that led to thinking about other engines and their needs. Does the Liqui-Moly I use work in a speedboat engine? How about in a small plane or microlite? Well, it seems that others also like to blaze and think about these things too. Todd from Project Farm has thought about this too, but he’s actually done something about it. He put together this content that pits aviation oil against automotive oil and marine oil using brands like Mobil 1, Phillips 66, Motorcraft, Quicksilver and Motul. The cool part with the testing Todd does is that it’s all funded out of his own pocket and has no reason to skew the results towards a sponsor/supplier. It’s a good watch if you like technical things, and an interesting watch if you’re one of those pedantic oil people. It may not be your preferred brand of oil, but it will give you insight into these things.

Take a look at the YouTube video that takes a look at all the technical things related to oil and how it differs across the various kinds of motors from various sides of the industry: Are All Motor Oils the Same? Let’s Find Out! | Project Farm

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