Grumpy Bear

Hum says "LAST USED" which indicates previous use thus 'routine', but granted, not interval. Routine is open ended sport. I RUN a catch can; while being present tense follows a paragraph which is CLEARLY meant to show results from that use. He added the comments about the cleaner and can as an after thought realizing his post was without reference. He gives detail about his cylinder by cylinder observations. That's where his focus was so the oversight is reasonable. THINK about EVER WORD not just the ones you like. The question was rhetorical. My eye sight and reason are in tact. Thank you for your unbias concern. Now could this be a troll just looking to deceive everyone? Sure! He put the can on yesterday, pulled the heads today and leads you to believe it is showing forever. Really? He might have even lied about the can and grabbed a photo from Google. He might be an English Major and good with words. Anything is possible these days. First we have, "IF you don't have a photo it didn't happen" and now we have "IF you have a photo it doesn't show what it shows". People say, "I'll believe it when I see it". I think in your case Mister, its gong to be: "I'll see it when I believe it"!

This is with a catch can and routine CRC cleaning. Did I read that right? 80,000 miles....hum.....Isn't this exactly6 what it is to prevent?

Rex and I did a 300 mile loop yesterday that included the Illinois side of the Mississippi Lock and Dam 13 complex and the back water slough that creates. Now there's some fish' n! We saw a rather rare white Pelican in a graceful soar over the river. One of the few really pretty days we've had recently. Low to mid 80's and 40% humidity. Light winds of about 5 mph mainly from the west south west. A real windows down trolling the Illinois River Roads sort of day. The day included the Mississippi, Kishwaukee, the Rock and the Illinois River watersheds and their tributaries. Traveling Ill 72 west about 50 mph we cut across the Rock and Kish 90 miles to the upper Mississippi and ambled down Ill 84. Pretty drive. Stopped in Cordova home of the World Series of Drag Racing. One of the track I use to race at in my youth finally intersecting I-80 we took that east to US Rt 6. Once a main artery of the US highway system it is now littered with the dead and dying towns IKE's Interstate system left behind in history. Their well kept appearance a testament to those that live in those towns. Headed south along Ill 26 at Princeton to I-180 following the Hennepin Canal Parkway to Illinois River Road Ill 71 east to nearly Oglesby were I-39 took us north stopping for gas before crossing back over the Illinois river. That segment netted a nice 31.6 mpg and now with a wind shift to a more southerly origin we floated on that 5 mph breeze home, roughly 80 miles at nearly 33 mpg with air now on at 55 mph. 173 water, 195 oil and 155 transmission. Purrrrrrrrrrfect. The winters slump is fully in the rearview mirror now never dropping below her lifetime average. The 36 point moving average early in the year now standing at last years late season peak which was boosted by a crazy good September run in 2018. What was last years anomaly has become a pretty much turnkey event this summer. The error bars on this chart stand at two standard deviations. This entire summer is running north of the one sigma mark signaling a major centerline shift upward. It will take a long time to reflect that in her life time average in consideration of the nearly 100,000 miles of history. Big service coming up at the next interval. Time to start making that list, eh?

A book, The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant: The Lives and Opinions of the World’s Greatest Philosophers. Durant’s astute summation on Aristotle. Quoting a phrase from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics which reads; “these virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions”, Durant’s offers in summation, “…we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act but a habit.”Oddly Aristotle gets credit for something said millenniums after his death, eh? I smile when I read this and lingered on the phrase, “is not an act”. Why did that bring a smile to my face? Because a single act is exactly what the majority of humanity calls ‘proof’ of anything. Then this is extrapolated into something like, “I’m not speeding $100 dollars on an alignment to get $20 more use out of my tires. How often I wondered about the people that show photographs of their DIC’s with some really great mpg numbers over very small distances and their ability to give the impression that this snapshot is a fair representation of the landscape of their driving habits. Even more so when willing to go to blows is vain attempts to fain proof in support of such an obvious deceit. That be as it may it isn’t the intent of this post to nail liars to stakes. It is, in fact, directed at the misconception itself and to offer the truth. A single act cannot offer proof thus knowledge to anything that requires a habit to establish. Guy gets called up from AAA and at his first at bat hits a Grand Slam. Good at bat! If he never bats again his record could read: Batting average 1,000. Hit a Grand Slam at every at bat. While true it is useless in establishing what sort of player, hitter he was. Just a quirk in the ripple of time. WIKI reports on the MLB rule for Batting Title: Under current rules, a player must have 3.1 plate appearances (PA) per team game (for a total of 502 over the current 162-game season) to qualify for the batting title. His habit is the rule of excellence not a single at bat. Seems everyone but forum people know this. When a fella says he won’t align his truck to save near worn out tires he isn’t commenting on his frugality and insight. That alignment has a profound effect on the next set as well does it not? What he is commenting on is his nature of habit. He sees the movie of his life in single frames divorced one from the other. Long life for a vehicle or good fuel efficiency isn’t the result of a single act but the sum of the owners habits over the life of that truck. In fact the habits required to affect excellence at anything both precede and exceed the object. Improvement is an ongoing process that is never complete.

G80 is a mechanical locker not a clutched limited slip so LSA additive not required.

Or you can open the windows for two minutes with the recirculation on, fan 50% and do the same thing.

Ever notice that the people reporting disaster do so on their first post? No just a bad lifter but one out of the box. 40 miles, 700 miles. Driving out of the lot. Pattern? Just an observation. Then poof, their gone never to be heard from again...until now...cornered.

About a mile west of Illinois 26 on the north side of Princeton. That's Rex behind the wheel . A covered bridge is rare in this state. Pretty day and we didn't waste it. He's actually a pretty good driver. Got Pepper scaled today. Weight with Rex and myself and about 23 gallons of fuel. A case of oil and other consumables. A few tools behind the seat and accessories. Bench wet weight was closer to 4500#. I need put Rex on a diet. Hood now sealed. Add that to the roof. Found two chips in front drivers side fender...clean through the bra no less! Another in the B pillar near the rear window. How did that get there? Making a list to repair all at the same time. These are tiny little things so far. Like the ball in a ball point pen size.

Pepper is getting her once a year waxing one panel at a time as weather permits. I know that sounds like a goofy thing to log but this is also my maintenance log and body care is part of maintenance. Straight away I found a new chip in the first panel. The roof. Tiny where a bird played chicken and lost. I use New-Finish or Turtle Wax Ice neither of which is technically a wax but a sealer. Neither has a stunning show car shine but both are very hydrophobic and stay put. Staying put is my #1 concern. Also cuts down on the ever expanding inventory. No detail wax required. Just distilled water, a misting bottle and a medium nap microfiber. It is way to much work to wash, clay and wax to have it disappear in a washing or three. Caught a rock in the windshield on the 4th. One of those state never covered gravel trucks with the sign, "Not responsible for damage to vehicles". I wasn't following. He came from the opposite direction and left me a present. Small chip but still.....

You did better than most. The adjustments I've been making are small and so I pull it from the overflow tank. Hammer moves I haven't done yet. When I did the thermostat modification I pulled up upper hose and just cleaned up the mess. Not having a petcock is silly. You figure something out....share brother, share.

As I noted the AC doesn't seem to have much effect on it UNTIL that AC becomes the 'thing' that keeps the AFM off. It's load based and as such it's zeros and ones. It's on or its off and measured by a fractions of a horsepower. The amount that triggers that is finitely minimal. When I first started working with this system I estimated it to have about a 10% impact on MPG. Stock I expect that is true at least in trucks with my OEM layout. Currently my AFM contributes roughly 18% to my mpg. The AC unit isn't using 18% more fuel, the lack of AFM is. My duty cycle percentage is pretty high. Much higher than GM ever imagined. What I've done with heat management and viscosity manipulation gives the same effect the original Range device intended to give. They did it by moving AFM trigger parameters to keep it on. I've done it by making Pepper operate more time INSIDE the factory parameters. If I were to plug in the original Range it would only be off during the cycle time 'timed out' segment and effectively I'd have a 4 cylinder. NOT GOOD. The Range excessively loaded the motor by forcing it to work harder than designed. The way I do it, it works less than design and by a bunch. Thanks James. I would think you fuel numbers quite reasonable for the loads you ask her haul/pull. Temps overall look pretty good too unless your oil number is actually 221 and not 211. Still if you change often enough...… Back to your fuel number. National Average is 17 so getting 18 hauling around 7200? That's VERY GOOD. Normally I'd say you guys in Florida have the heat thing rough but this last few weeks I think we are about even. This is NUTS. The humidity is suffocating.

Only restored what was lost by restoring what was and this only from the coolant. Gasoline octane value has had no effect ever.... Thought that needed clarification. Yesterdays trip was unusual. It is pretty much straight east and west. Wind was steady at 9 mph out of the south varying only a few degrees and a few mpg to gust. It's about 175 miles each way and I started on a partial tank. Pepper does not like winds above 5 mph and treats a dead right angle cross wind about the same as a head wind. About as long as that wind stays +/- 35-40 degrees from right angle and it did. My trip over has the sun on the drives side and as hot as it was and as much as I don't like too the windows were up and the AC was on. My partial tank sank from 31 to 28 mpg by the time I reached my destination. 28 was also my resettable segment number. On the way home sun is on the off side so my window down AC off and by tanks end she is at 30.3 mpg with the segment over 33 mpg when I top off at Rochelle Illinois. That looks like the AC consumes 5 mpg to use in this situation. This fits well with previous observations (over 97,000 miles of experience). With a tail wind AC uses nothing you can meter. In a straight up head wind above 8 mph where the AFM isn't active anyway it uses about 1 mpg to run. In a cross wind where use of the AC toggles the AFM off it is a killer and that is the point. The AFM when on as much as mine is it contributes HUGE to the overall MPG numbers that can be obtained. Okay....wife calls as I am filling up and running about 2 hours later than her expectations and told to get the lead out . Wind has died back to 3 mph and I have a 10 mile north segment of interstate, a fresh tank, still over 80 degrees, dog panting and the wife in like and kind so....windows up, AC on and...…...I set the cruse at 70 mph and as soon as I clear the on ramp reset the segment meter. …: 24.8 mpg @ 70 mph with the AC on and AFM off. Yea not an average over thousands of miles but a peak I'll bet everyone wanted to see. Once off the Interstate I let the meter run and dialed it back to the speed limit, 55 mph and the combine was 28 and change by the time I parked it some 15 miles later. Nice recovery. Oddly I want to know what 70 mph in a dead wind on a day cool enough to turn off the AC looks like. Ah, for another day. So a few things. 1.) Situational driving. Working with conditions instead of in spite of them yields measurable and hansom results. 2.) Tuning to keep the AFM active and maintaining to keep it clean likewise.

Anyway, (dinner and a nap and breakfast over). Took 1-1/2 liters of 55% glycol mix out of the system and replaced with water and Red Line Water Wetter. Mid 40% mix range. Hydrometer shows it below -20 F with burst -60F. This improves the thermal capacity of the coolant. Improved capacity lowers cylinder head temperature even at the same water temperature. Low CHT = less KI. Less KI = improved mpg. At least at the elevated temperatures so in essence this is a move to expand the range of good economy. Sort of like the 0W oils were to expand the lower range. Just opening the window wider. Now where is my coffee and Metamucil. ******************************************************************************************* 7/4/2019 late day. This experiment worked well. While it's hard to determine the time weighted average KI the actual coolant/oil/transmission temperatures did respond lower overall. That needs a bit of explanation. 170 thermostat is an approximation. It will 'throttle' at 173 F minimum. If it is showing a constant 175 F it getting close to fully open. By the time it's reading 177 F it is open and the system is riding on the air/coolant thermal capacity/flow rate balanced against the load. With air temperatures 90F and above and running 55 mph 177 F was pretty normal. Now it is 173 F on the flat and down hill runs and 175 on the average accents. Oil temperature dropped 2 to 3 F and transmission is the same but recovers faster. This based on a small sample 325 mile trip today. I'm now looking for the edge of the octane required to keep all the KI at bay. Tested 87 naturally and then 88. That test on the run home. On the fill today tank adjusted to 91 octane. Only had about a 30 mile look. It's a 26 gallon tank so when 13 gallons was used up I filled with 89 to bring the 87 to 88. With another 13 gallons used filled with 93 to bring the tank to 91. I saw no difference between 87 and 88 other than that created by the coolant adjustment. 91 however backed the KI down quite a bit. Too soon to say a number but certain hills previous were -9.5*. Coolant adjustment took about 2* out. So far the 91 has it under or around 2* total on my selected hills. So close. Nothing I've done to date that has lowered KI has produced a better MPG. No gasoline brand I've used to date has produced a statistically significant difference. What has happened is just a cooler running total system with a more rapid response. I'll take that.

This is one of two 'Lookers" I ran across today. This was sitting in a truck stop in Mendota Illinois. This isn't a restoration. This is just well maintained and all OEM. I love it when I run across one like this. Let's a guy know he efforts are not wasted when he is chided for them. The other one was an early Ford Ranger also all original, OEM and a daily driver. I followed that fella half way up Ill Route 2. It was like following myself. Even the frame and under sheet metal looks pretty much like it did the day she was built. What a nice example. T It's been brutal here for over a week. 90+ F and high humidity. Goofy winds and storms daily. The other day I got trapped on the I-39 in backed up traffic over 3 miles long creeping at a snails pace but moving. 98 F, dead air and could wring the water out of the air. I don't care how low your thermostat is when you at 5 mph in those conditions stuff is going to get hot But not as badly as I would have thought. Water topped out at 195 F. Fan never kicked in. Oil made it to 201 F and the trans saw it's first trip past 180F by 2 degrees. I've also noticed this last week that there has been a fair amount of additional KI retard that IS ambient air driven. This has driven back the MPG a tad. Seems 85F plus minus a tad is a sweet spot. (more later, dinner's on).

Neither. Refining background. BTU content is referenced to pounds. Pounds per gallon a reference to volume. Gasoline is not of a constant density. For the example shown I used 6.30 pounds per gallon or a specific density of .756. This is actually a Commonwealth Standard. I could have used 6.073 pounds per gallon or a gravity of .729. World wide the difference is quite large where aromatic content is not strictly regulated. You hear people say 'winter' and 'summer' gas. The difference, besides a hint of butane for the Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP) is the aromatic content. The BTU value is only 1.7% difference. (reference EPA). This also changes the specific gravity slightly thus the volume per pound. Usage is tied to BTU content not volume. At 20 mpg the winter summer argument is only a difference of 0.34 mpg. Most would not even notice it as pump variation per fill is higher than that and would mask it to all but the most serious stat's freaks. Okay, seriously...I used pounds to give the differences more gravity (pun intended). Larger graduations. But the above is true as well.

Fuel, Sorry. Incomplete label. Thought MPG was enough but proved wrong. Thank you sir. Ol brain runs faster than my fingers sometimes. 6/29/2019 Well being Saturday we got one more tank in which didn't really dent the monthly number above but it wasn't in the mid 31's either. Reason? A/C was on seven of the nine hours the motor was turning. It was 95F and humidity was over 75% and the wife wasn't having any part of windows and fresh air. (I was glad). Monthly number down to 31.02 from 31.09 mpg for June. Meh! I would expect the AC will be a part of life if this is going to be our summer. I'm good with 30 plus and the AC on.

4,546 miles in June using 146.22 gallons = 31.09 miles. Of this 3,534 miles were using 0W30 for 30.4 mpg Of this 1,012 miles were using 0W20 for 31.6 mpg Thing is I think this has more to do with higher ambient temperature than viscosity. This graph is displayed to show how the curve in fuel used flattens as you get toward the left. Now over 30 mpg the variation I worked so hard to erase in fuel fills will start showing up in minor variations resulting in large changes in usage. This is where stats trump observations hands down.

6/27/2019 2014 Terrain 2.4 95,000 miles 5K OCI 5 Quarts Red Line 0W30 and NAPA Gold filter. 5W30 Mobil 1 showed no reduction in usage. 3/4 quart in 5K. Nick AMSOIL is up next. Need lowest NOACK.

95,000 Mile Service 94,804 actual. 0W30 Red Line HP and NAPA Gold filter and a tire rotation. Cursory checks and fills. Safety check, lights and all. Used about 3/4 of a quart this time. No measurable improvement with Mobil 1 5W30. I had enough of the Red Line on hand to do a change and it preformed well in the Silverado. Rotors holding up well. Nothing really to report. She uses this truck or is it abUSES? Poor little 2.4 takes a lick'n and keeps on tick'n.

Two tanks since the trade back to 0W20. Wind, rain, trips to town I hate doing but needed the truck to do. Killed them both and while not what I hoped for it did make June 2019 the highest month on record to date and I might get one more tank in before books close on the month. Maybe. This is 100 miles on this tank. (LOL look at that fuel gauge). It is a 88 F day at 40% relative humidity. A/C off, wind open. Wind South by South West at 2-6 mph. Route I-39 to I-80 and back starting in Rochelle Ill, and ending in Kingston Ill. (home). That's 12 miles more tail than head wind. Was also a 'hot start' finishing the previous tank and starting anew. 5 hours into the day. On a separate trip meter the last 51.1 miles recorded a straight up 36 mpg. 2-6 mph tail wind in light traffic. 300 ft. elevation rise over that 50 miles. Plenty of construction. Trip down was 31 and small change into the wind.

Yes Mike, between 30 and 35K a year and I don't drive much in the winter. Not a fan of salt. Like you, I am not afraid of my V-4 and have done what I can to encourage it to stay on. Which is allot more often than it was when I bought her. 26 mpg summer! That's good! How many miles do you have on your truck? Remind me, what were you using before the Rotella GT? 0W30 is a great choice IMHO. Especially for those motors that don't use extra oil cooling and run factory water thermostats. Pretty sure you would like it. Enjoy the drive and thanks for dropping in!

261F in the pan and he is not worried Alkylbenzene and Phosphate Esters not used AS motor oil. Polyglycol and PAG are the same thing and while not used AS a motor oil can be used to modify motor oil to improve additive solubility and polarity. Note above the end of the yellow CONTINUOUS SERVICE for each and then note below that bearing temperatures are @75 F higher than bulk oil temperatures. Ring temperatures under full load are even higher. Chart is for mineral oil. Bearing reference bottom of the chart. Also note the low pan temperatures that promote long engine life are well below 212 F. When different oils are blended the ranges are a compromise of all the oils in the blend. Weakest link. Red Line and AMSOIL are PAO/Ester blends with the esters being the lesser of the two but significant in proportion. You will find their composite continuous temperature to be well below the average of the 'everybody knows' numbers spouted those who scoff at frequent changes, coolers and lower water thermostat settings / lower glycol concentrations. You can run Castor Bean Oil in a motor IF you change it frequently enough and keep it cool enough. The question has never been which oil is best or will take the most abuse. The question is: How much abuse are you going to ask it to take? I cool it, clean it and change it often even using the best I can afford to buy. I do not find that wasteful. I find using a really good oil and pulling 9K up a 5 mile 7% grade in 110F weather with the oil running over 260/270 F in the pan and then insisting that once a year changes are okay to be...well….. IMHO of course.

Saw a blurb on the news last night some areas got two feet? Must be higher than 9K.

Garbage In, Garbage Out Filling station pumps and accuracy. Stopped at a station where a gentlemen was doing the State checks so took the opportunity to ask some. 3 cubic inches under and 6 cubic inches over on a 5 gallon fill is the allowance. They are checked every two years unless someone files a complaint. (There are 231 cubic inches in a gallon) My average fill is 15 gallons. Half a tank. A legal under fill then is .039 gallons. A legal over fill .078 gallons. .118 gallons possible variance from pump to pump. (.447 liters). On a 15 gallon fill and 30 mpg I travel 450 miles. If those 450 miles a legal over fill would read only 14.921 or 30.16 mpg. The under fill would read 15.039 thus 29.92 mpg. A spread of 0.24 mpg or 0.79% high to low. Livable but not within 0.1 mpg which some claim as the accuracy of GM’s on board fuel reporting. If my average were say 15 mpg then that error is double percentage wise. My DIC is 7.6% happy. This is only the first problem with such a claim. The second would be the sample size the claim is based on, a tank or two. The work around is, it was the same pump at the same station. Certainly improves the odds but does not solidify the claim. Most stations have a master pump that feeds multiple dispensing pumps. How many were running at each fill? The issue is line pressure and line pressure goes to fill rate and that to agitation, froth and the effects that has on the auto shut off. Don’t tell me you don’t notice the delivery rate change when the guy on the other side of your pump is topping off. The real wild card is the frequency of the inspections and how quickly that certification can be out of spec and how long it can go unnoticed by anyone that would complain. The approach and load. Allot of stations have some pretty steep run off grades. The same pump addressed from opposite sides yields and different possible end point. Some tanks have odd shapes and even fill volume may trap some vapor in one direction it does not in another. Point is there are allot of variables and yet with careful records, some data mining and statistical analysis over thousands of miles and dozens of tanks and using a single pump of very recent calibration as a touch stone you have a tool to gauge accuracy of every other pump you might use. If I’m careful and I am I can find the standard deviation of a single pumps delivery and calibrate my OBDII tool to, in my case, that deviation of but .05 gallons. (Use to be a quart before I adopted the 3 click fill) I can add to that the standard legal variance and know that if a fill reads more than .168 gallons different than the OBDII device it is suspect. If I get one that reads 3 to 5 tenths over or under….that’s a pump I don’t use again until I see a new certification sticker. I have a list of such pumps within 100 miles of my home. There are quite a few. A recent investigative reporter found the percentage of pumps in one state at 16% of all pumps were out of calibration. So when I hit a pump today that showed a shortage of a half-gallon in 10, the store manager and I had a talk. One that got me some money back and a bag on the pump. It’s not hard to win that argument when there isn’t an unbroken State seal on the pump.

Mom use to put wash on the line when it was -10 F and cloths dried. Put a pan on water on the table and it will evaporate at room temperature. You don't have to get the moisture over the boiling point at atmospheric pressure to remove the moisture. Heat helps speed the process yes but... I use to distill water from water based resins to improve solids in the lab at 60 F under vacuum. My Ecotec3 is an orifice based PCV system tied to the manifold which is under vacuum and so is the crankcase by extension. You get your system in the basement to 195 F ish and bingo...water/fuel free oil. Vacuum distillation is the heart of oil refining. And I'm out of here as well.....