Len Gilbert, well-known author of the Diesel Diaries, wrote about the dangers of using modern oils in old engines – and these abound in yachts and vintage launches.
These older models often had relatively ‘leaky’ bushings and seals, and they relied on the oil itself to compensate for fairly loose tolerances. Gilbert spoke of being able to tell the health of the engine by the amount of oil it leaked.
Newer engines, on the other hand, have very fine tolerances, and modern oil additives often include dispersants, detergents, oxidation inhibitors, antiwear agents, extreme-pressure additives and viscosity index improvers.
Putting a modern API-CJ4 specification synthetic oil into, for example, a 1968 Perkins 6.354 engine that called for a mineral-based SAE 30 API CC will almost certainly result in the engine starting…
