Waste Oil/Used Engine Oil

boisblancboy · January 09, 2010, 06:28:36 PM

I know in the manual it says that you shouldnt use waste oil. Does anyone here use it? What are the reasons that you shouldnt use it?

chucker · January 09, 2010, 06:42:42 PM

solvents that are in the oil from being over heated and flooded engins, carbon deposits,gas and probably a few other elements.... after time the seals and o-rings will fail in the oil pump!!! BUT!! that has not stoped me from useing it when in a pinch... i do how ever filter the used oil through coffee filters and what ever i can find to make the best filtering system for what its worth..?? after filtering i add a little tranny fluid and diesal fuel to keep it flowing good. but then i guess when in a pinch could always pilfer the wifes five gallon jug of veggie oil hey ??lol

bandmiller2 · January 09, 2010, 07:00:54 PM

Some waste oil like turbine oil ,auto trans fluid, or air comp drainings if settled and filtered are not bad.You have to use your judgement,it just gets slung off anyways,its not like your running it through the engine.Frank C.

tstex · January 09, 2010, 09:22:16 PM

Seems like most of you guys are from up north, so I am not sure if you have termites or not? Here in SSW Texas, if you toss your tooth-pick on the ground after dinner, when you walk back by, it is gone. :'(

I put all of my old fluids [oil, hydraulic, etc] into 5 gal buckets...I then strain and mix 1/2 pt diesel with 1 gal oil...i then put into a pump spray and spray all the bottom 2x4's and pickets at the base of my work sheds...early spring, they are pretty warm and just suck it up...it is now like treated wood...no spills, no waste and when the termites hit it, they always make a 180 with their tunnel ! :D :D :D

I also save my larger [tractor hydraulic] filters and then fill them up with oil, then turn them upside down on the lg end-post of my bw-fence posts...this keeps them from drying out and splitting..they will last much, much longer. Very good way to re-cycle.

Good luck,
tstex

chucker · January 09, 2010, 10:27:41 PM

true that tstex!! use it on all the pole shed poles and bottom boards to the smaller sheds....also works great to treat new trailer bed decking..coat them twice a year makes for a long lasting deck.

bill m · January 09, 2010, 10:31:49 PM

I save the hydraulic oil from my tractor and use it in my saws. I will not use used motor oil.

Cut4fun · January 09, 2010, 10:39:05 PM

I work on a firewood cutters saw a couple times a year to clean the bar oiler filter because he runs old motor oil in it while he is unemployed and cant afford the bar oil.

Ed · January 09, 2010, 11:30:39 PM

Where's Gary??? :D

Ed

sawguy21 · January 10, 2010, 12:10:09 AM

I remember an old time logger that used the drainings from the diesel crawler as bar oil. He was madder than a wet cat every time the oiler quit working he had been doing it for years in his old Pioneer. What the beep was wrong with that DanG Stihl? I finally told him if he was too cheap to use clean bar oil I was quite happy to lighten his wallet in the shop. ;D

windthrown · January 10, 2010, 03:24:15 AM

Used motor oil will wear your oil chainsaw pump gearing and your bars and chains. Setteling and filtering it will not (repeat, not) get rid of all the fine particles in there, and it is rather abrasive. It is also a lot more toxic than fresh oil; heavy metals and blowby hydrocarbons remain in that stuff. And if you think that oils like hydrolic fluid, tranny and diff fluid are good for running in your chainsaws, think again. You can absorb hydrolic fluids through your skin in about 20 minutes, and you can also breathe it in throught your lungs. It winds up in your fatty tissues, and raises havoc with enzyme activity, screws up your nervous system, can permanently affect your nerves and cause paralysis and impaired muscle function, can cause tremors, vomiting and dirrahea. Good stuff, eh?

I have bought saws with used motor oil in the oil tanks, and I dump it into the motor oil recycle tank and I flush out the tank with paint thinner, and dump that one firewood that I am going to burn. Then I use fresh bar oil, made for chainsaws, like anyone that is sane would do. That also has tackifiers in it to make the oil stick to your bar, which used motor and hydrolic oils will not have. You hillbillies wanna save money and ruin your saws and spray heavy metals and hydrolic fluid around where you work? Well, good luck with that. My father used to do that kind of stuff, and he died of cancer at a fairly young age.

I swear, I can hear the banjo music playing around here... smile_banjoman

Get real people. Do not do this crap to yourselves!

Al_Smith · January 10, 2010, 07:43:28 AM

Now they claim that tests have shown that old black as tar motor oil doesn't wear out bars and chains but I don't believe it .

I have two buddys that have waste oil burners and I save my oil in a 50 gallon drum and they get it .One of them is heating a 60 by 100 shop with old oil .Works good , almost no smoke plus it's basically free .

The stuff isn't bad wood preservative but it isn't good either .Shall we say better than nothing .

I'm cheap but I'm not so cheap I can't buy bar oil .

bill m · January 10, 2010, 08:11:31 AM

OK windthrown since you are the expert on here about oil what does hydraulic oil have in it to make so bad for you that bar oil does not? I know all oils are not the same and hydraulic oil does not have the additives that motor oil does. At 0 degrees I don't think I need tackifiers in my oil. I only use the hyd. oil mixed with bar oil when it is that cold. The rest of the year I use regular bar oil. Winter weight bar oil is to thin to run even when it is 0 out.IMO

Al_Smith · January 10, 2010, 09:59:46 AM

Back in the days of non detergent motor oil you could recycle part of it for lubricants .You just dump it in a 5 gallon bucket or something and the sludge would sink to the bottom leaving a few gallons of clear on top .

Doesn't work that way for high detergent oil ,it's pretty much just so much fuel in general speak because it's not good for much of anything else .

I might add though that old hydraulic oil makes a pretty good rust inhibiter for drill presses , lathes etc that sit in unheated buildings .You have to daub in on though before they rust .Doesn't do a lot of good after the fact . Kinda like bolting the barn door after the horse got loose .

tstex · January 10, 2010, 10:15:23 AM

Windthrown,

You make some good points, but I also believe one needs to incorporate some general common sense and safety. I for one, use brand-new, to spec products, in all my machines...IMHO, only way to go, but to each their own.

As far as handling cancer-causing agents [and i am sorry for your father], I use non-permeable gloves, full clothing and work in vented open areas with a slight breeze. I hope the hydraulic fluids do everything you say to those termites...there are about 2 billion of them around here and knocking out a couple of their colonies seems okay to me. I don't really think I kill them, but just make them do a lot of work for nothing..."*DanG, this wood tastes like shxt, guess were gonna have to tunnel back another 30 ft" :D :D :D ;D

Also, I would be remiss if I did not state that I got a good laugh on your hillbillies stuff...that was one ugly dude in Deliverance...

Be safe,
tstex

stonebroke · January 10, 2010, 11:16:20 AM

I heard that some firewood processors use hyd. oil from they tank as bar oil. It makes a certain amount of sense as you would be puting new hyd. oil in on a regular basis.

Stonebroke

Reddog · January 10, 2010, 11:23:48 AM

Quote from: stonebroke on January 10, 2010, 11:16:20 AM
I heard that some firewood processors use hyd. oil from they tank as bar oil.

Yes, but most of the processors turn the chain at half the speed or less than a chain saw.

Rocky_J · January 10, 2010, 12:10:09 PM

Hydraulic insulated stick saws used by line clearance bucket truck operators also use hydraulic oil for bar lube. Oil is oil, it's no big deal. The bar lube we use has tack agents to help keep it from flying off the bar too quickly but other than that it's just cheap oil. It only has to last about 1-2 trips around the bar anyway.

I agree that used motor oil is nasty and not a good option. Mostly because it's just dirty, the grit will wear the oil pump and the suspended particles can be toxic.

welderskelter · January 10, 2010, 07:07:24 PM

How do you figure used oil is dirty? Been running around in those high powered vehicles that seem not to throw a rod because it is running all that dirt through them bearings. Makes me want to go dump all that dirty oil out of my vehicle engines and run with out any.

Cant say that the black in the oil hurts bearings any. Had a boss once that didnt change oil, just filters. Them combines made 12 years of harvest. Engine still running good. Once in a while I dump in some gas and wash it good and dump it out. Why make them arabs any more money.

Al_Smith · January 10, 2010, 07:20:59 PM

Hmm ,well it is a free country and as such a person can run motor oil that looks like creosote if they choose to I suppose .I choose not to myself .

However just for anyones general information after the oil gets enough contamination in it the stuff will pyrolite .In other words basically downgrade to petrolium coke which resembles charcoal .This stuff is as abrasive as fine sand .

sawguy21 · January 10, 2010, 09:45:18 PM

I have always used bar oil in my saws but have used varsol and atf as parts and hand cleaner. Horrors

:D

GASoline71 · January 10, 2010, 10:11:18 PM

LMAO... if you wanna use that crap... go ahead. Used oil has unburned gasoline in it from ring blowby. Gasoline is a solvent. It will lead to pump failure sooner or later. Some get lucky, and have no problems. It will help contribute to your bars runnin' hotter and wear them out earlier too. Plus it is thinner and slings everywhere... black smelly nasty stuff.

It stains saws and clothing...

I have used clean 30wt before in a pinch and it worked fine. I also had to use some waste oil from a Cat one time... I used it for a full day of cuttin'. The saw I was usin' was stained from that one use, until the day I sold it...

Just all around bad idear... use bar oil. It's desihgned for a specific purpose... don't matter if it's a $3.99 jug from Walmart or a $20.00 jug from your dealer... it's 1,000 times better than used cranckcase oil.

Gary

Gary_C · January 10, 2010, 11:16:42 PM

Quote from: Ed on January 09, 2010, 11:30:39 PM
Where's Gary??? :D

Ed

Were you looking for me or the other Gary? ;D

I've been busy looking for a haz mat suit to change my oil and refill my hydraulic systems. Oh and looking for those pyrolite rocks in my crankcase. ;D

But seriously there is nothing in used hydraulic or engine oil that will harm the internal workings of a chainsaw. That is unless you drain your oil in dirty drain pans. Even black engine oil is far from abrasive or other ways harmful. It may not do the job very well because of a lack of tackifiers, but it will not harm your chainsaw.

Now as far as using it as a bar oil, no way would I use it and mainly because of what the other Gary said. It will make a mess of everything around and probably is not good for the environment.

In case you did not know, bar oil is the bottom of the barrel from the oil blending plants. It is made up from leftovers and cleanup of equipment from batches of engine oils, hydraulic oils, turbine oils, and air compressor oils, When someone orders a batch of bar oil they ask how much tackifier do you want in it, do you want winter or summer weight, and what color do you want it. Then they bring out these totes of leftovers, dump them into a blender, add enough new feed stock to fill out the batch, and presto, Bar Oil comes out. Can contain additives for just about any oil and probably does. Just comes without the soot from those diesel engines.

Pay any price you want, buy any brand you want, but use the bar oil, not the messy stuff. ;D

tstex · January 11, 2010, 09:36:00 AM

Pay any price you want, buy any brand you want, but use the bar oil, not the messy stuff. ;D
[/quote]

Gary,

Have any of you guys ever made a call that Stihl bar oil vs "walmart equivalent" prevents a chain-saw from having any major problems? It is hard to me to see why, unless there is some special kind of ingredient or the "w-mart" like brand is pure crap.

Thx,
tstex

OneWithWood · January 11, 2010, 10:15:24 AM

I used to use recycled and filtered engine oil in my chainsaws. Got real tired of burned bars and gave up that habit.

The tackifiers are added for a reason and they do make a difference in bar wear and heat build up.

Al_Smith · January 11, 2010, 05:11:10 PM

You can get as many opinions on what brand of bar oil is best just like mix oil and it could go on for weeks-----and has .

Probabley all are about the same providing it has some tacking agent .Stihl,being Stihl would say they have the best but that's up to the end user to decide .

Plain old 30WT motor works if you can pump enough of it on the bar which is nearly impossible on a modern saw .Aha though the old Macs will do it . 8)