In This Issue:

• Today's Tip: The Right Amount of Oil

• Book Bits: Lubricant Color Change

• Lube-Trivia: Name That Additive

• Q & A: How To Determine if Wrong Oil is Added

CONGRATULATIONS to Jeff Stegemiller, Gallatin Steel - the winner of last week's Readers Challenge - Developing a Motor Bearing Regreasing Strategy.

See the winning response, as well as other responses at:
http://www.lube-tips.com/challenge/2003-09-10.asp

Today's Tip

The Right Amount of Oil

• In oil bath lubricated rolling-element bearings, the recommended oil level is halfway up the lowest roller or ball.
  

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Book Bits

Lubricant Color Change

From "Lubrication Excellence 2003 Conference Proceedings"

Changes in color can sometimes reflect contamination, overheating, excessive degradation or the wrong lubricant. A rapid change in color from the original oil sample requires further analysis to identify the source.

ASTM D1500 (Standard Test Method for Petroleum Products) provides colored standards that are used for comparison to the oil sample. Changes can then be recorded with a controlled methodology. The changes of the three ASTM Color Standards (color) should be considered suspicious and further evaluation is required.

More information about the book "Lubrication Excellence 2003 Conference Proceedings"

Lube-Trivia

Name That Additive

Test your knowledge and prepare for ICML lubrication and oil analysis certification with Lube-Trivia.

QUESTION: Antiscuff additives are also known as what?

For the answer, visit: http://www.lube-tips.com/trivia/20030917.asp

Q & A

How To Determine if Wrong Oil is Added

"We suspect that a small amount of an electrohydraulic control (EHC) phosphate ester fluid was added to a reservoir containing a polyalphaolefins (PAO) synthetic. What is the best way to figure out if this has in fact happened?"

For oils that have wildly different base stock chemistry, the simplest method is usually Fourier transform infra red spectroscopy (FTIR). FTIR looks for functional groups in the oil sample. These functional groups act as molecular fingerprints to identify different components in the oil, as well as common contaminants such as water, fuel and glycol.

In the case of phosphate ester contamination of a PAO, you would be looking for a peak in the FTIR spectrum around the 1700 to 1800 wave number corresponding to the phosphate functional group. Because this functional group will not be present in the PAO-based oil, any signs of a peak in this region may suggest cross-contamination. By comparing the spectra of a new sample of the PAO-based oil, a new sample of the EHC fluid and the suspected blend, evidence of cross- contamination should be fairly easy to recognize.

Most oil commercial oil analysis laboratories should be able to conduct this test for you.

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