Natural Gas engine oil

I think I remember seeing re-refined motor oil on the shelf. With lower oil prices, I'm guessing it couldn't compete.

 

Same here. $23-25 for 5 quarts in my parts.

 

A few posts here have touched on details of organic chemistry. Without (my) tiresome pedantic style. Very much appreciated.

 

Just saw Troy-bilt/MTD motor oils packaged in plastic pouches. Same material as would my cat litter moved to years ago. So maybe those oild bottles will become less of an issue in the future.

 

When I worked in a mom-n-pop auto service shop we weren't big enough to buy bulk lube and the modern 5qt bottle was not yet available. So it was cases of quart bottles. We wound up building a little rig in the back to rest 5 or 6 "empty" bottles neck down into a collector funnel with another 1qt bottle beneath, and kept it in a repurposed curio case for dustproofing. We recovered quite a lot of "heels" this way, enough for free oil for our personal vehicles whenever needed.

 

Maybe bulk oil sale for the DIY market could be viable. I'm guessing not though; it's a waning segment, and people are too lazy, prefer the convenience of pre-bottled, aren't going to budge. Love to be proved wrong.

Come to think of it, used to be tinned quarts was the norm, and you had that pouring spout that doubled as a puncture device.

Once in a while I'm using bottles, and one trick I found, is to just set the "empty" bottles, even just a few hours, then come back and tip them out. You can do this two or three times, get a few tablespoons the first time, one the second, then maybe call it quits.

 

I do the same thing with my wife's chardonnay bottles!!

 

I'm confused here Mendel! If you say conventional, I thought you meant mineral oil. Does 5w20 (synthetic) also means conventional?

 

It is interesting that the newer John Deere mowers have put convenience above the environment. They put the oil and filter in one replaceable disposable cartridge. Good for recurring profits too.

 

They're allowing oil changes? I figured they'd be quick to leap onto the lifetime oil bandwagon.

Of course it's Deere, you probably need a crypto code to reinsert the drain plug.

Edit: close enough, looks like you exchange the entire loaded tank.

 

Their 5W20 bulk oil is conventional, and the 0W20 synthetic. They also sell synth 5W20, but only bottled.

 

John Deere has pissed off a lot of farmers with their closed software nonsense.

To be fair, many B&S operators were probably maintaining their equipment that way already.

 

Likely. Its a bit marketing heavy, but this Shell video gives a good overview of the process (jump to 1:15):

 

Nice video. Surprising Malaysia was its first company since 1800s. I'm kinda surprised, there hasn't being conflicts with the indigenous Malaysians to shell, as compared to what happens in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, where there's has being conflicts since its inception in the 50s. Probably different strokes to different shell companies abroad.

 

Nice video. Although they say Shall was first "Gas"-to-Liquids plant was in 1993, what they are not saying is way before that the fuel of choice was coal-to-liquids via Fischer Tropsche process, most notably in South Africa for many decades before that. You can see from the equipment complexity this is very expensive process. It's a tough call in todays economics to invest all that expense to convert gas to liquids vs. going to LNG for export. But anyways you can probably make nice quality lubes that way, but I do not think is the same process as the historic meaning of synthetic lubes.

 

Regarding sale of "reclaimed" oil. I remember back in the early 1980s. I was a young, just married guy, living in Palm Springs, Calif. area without much $$$/

The local chain supermarket "Stater Bros" sold reclaimed motor oil on the shelves of the "auto section," such as it was. Do not remember the brand, but for some reason "Ray-Lube" pops into my head, but I could be wrong. It was very clearly marked and about half the price of the other brands. They also had "reclaimed" spark plugs, which makes more sense to me. In those days you changed them, what, every 3K? and mostly all they needed was a good cleaning. Well, I mean, when I pulled them from the car they needed a good clean. The ones for sale were already clean.

Despite my finances, I never did go for the reclaimed stuff.