54,000 Mile Oil Analysis - Increased Lead

[UnhandledException]

What if you need to do a Home Depot run?

Really? Ok.

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[stanglife]

Sense of humor = 0, I guess ;)

 

[matthewr87]

Perhaps it is time for an engine teardown to see what is going on? If it is bad news then maybe a built engine is the way to go. Although if you do not track the car (since you have faster track toys) then perhaps CarMax or Vroom can take it off your hands while prices are still pretty high.

 

[velocity550]

WOW. After reading 7 pages of this thread my advice for all that it's worth would be just sell it man. You will likely get a good chunk of money for it due to the current situation. Get a 2019+ gt350 and make new memories! Replacing the engine in your current 350 could possible never make it behave the same anymore, there are a lot of things that can go wrong with doing that. Not to mention that you are having other problems with it such as the interior falling apart....

 

[UnhandledException]

What I dont understand is how something like this can go on for 23,000 miles and the engine still runs? I also dont know what material bearings are in this car, I read 5.0 threads of similar increased Lead value in other forums where people swore that bearings are all aluminum or copper but not lead.

 

[UnhandledException]

I read somewhere that oil filters that are spin on type sometimes have lead components that can cause this issue. Can anyone chime in on this?

 

[JAJ]

What I dont understand is how something like this can go on for 23,000 miles and the engine still runs? I also dont know what material bearings are in this car, I read 5.0 threads of similar increased Lead value in other forums where people swore that bearings are all aluminum or copper but not lead.

Seemingly random bumps up in wear metals can be the result of dirt getting in. Air filter and all the associated plumbing still all tight and ok? While 35 ppm sounds like a lot, it's only about 3 times the normal level, so it's alarming - a wake-up call, if you will - but it's not catastrophic at this point.

 

[UnhandledException]

Seemingly random bumps up in wear metals can be the result of dirt getting in. Air filter and all the associated plumbing still all tight and ok? While 35 ppm sounds like a lot, it's only about 3 times the normal level, so it's alarming - a wake-up call, if you will - but it's not catastrophic at this point.

The air filter is pretty snug. I clean it every oil change and I replace every 4th oil change (and I use the blue expensive filters). With the mileage I put on my cars, that amounts to be roughly 1 filter every year.

When I took apart the throttle body a year ago to try out a ported throttle body (which I never kept on the car), I noticed oil and dirt accumulated towards the bottom of the brushed aluminum portion of the intake plenum. It was oil mixed with black colored dirt. I assumed some amount of dirt is normal after that many miles and didn't think too much about it.

The other thing I started noticing (maybe completely coincidentally) is the Motorcraft oil filters that I purchased around 2-2.5 years ago (and this never changed since then) had what appears to be some sort of a red colored paste on the female threads. In fact, I sent a few of these filters back to Amazon first only to see every filter coming back had the same. It causes some resistance as you screw it and I think eventually the red stuff is pushed into the filter as you screw in. I dont know if any of this is acting like "dirt" in the engine or if anything in this filter is lead based.

 

[JAJ]

The air filter is pretty snug. I clean it every oil change and I replace every 4th oil change (and I use the blue expensive filters). With the mileage I put on my cars, that amounts to be roughly 1 filter every year.

When I took apart the throttle body a year ago to try out a ported throttle body (which I never kept on the car), I noticed oil and dirt accumulated towards the bottom of the brushed aluminum portion of the intake plenum. It was oil mixed with black colored dirt. I assumed some amount of dirt is normal after that many miles and didn't think too much about it.

The other thing I started noticing (maybe completely coincidentally) is the Motorcraft oil filters that I purchased around 2-2.5 years ago (and this never changed since then) had what appears to be some sort of a red colored paste on the female threads. In fact, I sent a few of these filters back to Amazon first only to see every filter coming back had the same. It causes some resistance as you screw it and I think eventually the red stuff is pushed into the filter as you screw in. I dont know if any of this is acting like "dirt" in the engine or if anything in this filter is lead based.

The red on the FL2069ST filter threads is thread locker and Ford puts it there to keep the filter from unscrewing between oil changes. It's the main reason to only ever use Motorcraft spin on filters on your early production Voodoo engine.

Some dirt in the intake is normal, but all it takes is a bit to get into the engine and it can generate a burst of wear metals that fades pretty quickly if that's all it was. Hence the "change it and do another test in 2000 miles" advice people often get when they have a high number that seems to come out of nowhere.

As for the "blue" air filter, I'm a big fan of the light yellow ones from Motorcraft or (in my case) the Wix equivalent. Use them, when they look a little dirty, toss them and put in a new one. The Wix that I use are about 1/4 the cost of the FP blue filter, so if you clean the blue one three times before you replace it, then it's a wash pretty much on cost. Note, I'm NOT blaming the blue filter for the problem, just pointing out that a new filter isn't much more expensive, if at all, and they work just fine.

 

[Ranguvar]

Just wanted to add that this thread has been incredibly helpful for my future ownership.
Thanks so much for all your details recorded here, it's a major assist.
I plan on also daily driving, and keeping the car essentially forever.

I don't have enough experience to help you much with the lead readings, but I might ask Blackstone what their experience has been. My gut (not that you should trust it) says this is isn't at all a major issue.

If I may ask about one thing you stated earlier

"i use thick electrical tape to block off oil radiator mesh on front bumper when its 30 degrees or colder which helps keep oil temp in 175F in extreme cold days (without it the temps stay at 152F)."

Could you show where this is roughly?
I've worried about engine temps quite a bit, this sounds extremely useful.

Do you mean the entire front grill over the main air inlet?

 

[Hack]

What I dont understand is how something like this can go on for 23,000 miles and the engine still runs? I also dont know what material bearings are in this car, I read 5.0 threads of similar increased Lead value in other forums where people swore that bearings are all aluminum or copper but not lead.

You didn't write units for the amount of lead in the oil in your posts, but my assumption is that they are measuring a miniscule amount of lead that corresponds to an extremely small amount of wear. It's not like there's a 1/4 pound of lead particles in your oil. Failure mode for bearing wear is low oil pressure and/or knocking noises. Have you noticed a change in the oil pressure when the engine is hot and at idle? Any new noises?

As long as the bearing surfaces retain a properly pressurized oil film between them you can continue to have slight wear for many years and lots of miles.

 

[UnhandledException]

Just wanted to add that this thread has been incredibly helpful for my future ownership.
Thanks so much for all your details recorded here, it's a major assist.
I plan on also daily driving, and keeping the car essentially forever.

I don't have enough experience to help you much with the lead readings, but I might ask Blackstone what their experience has been. My gut (not that you should trust it) says this is isn't at all a major issue.

If I may ask about one thing you stated earlier

"i use thick electrical tape to block off oil radiator mesh on front bumper when its 30 degrees or colder which helps keep oil temp in 175F in extreme cold days (without it the temps stay at 152F)."

Could you show where this is roughly?
I've worried about engine temps quite a bit, this sounds extremely useful.

Do you mean the entire front grill over the main air inlet?

I tape off the left and right radiators (engine oil and transmission oil). I also tape off the center lower mesh grill for the radiator. Basically every grill except the center top one with the shelby logo.

Car has been extremely reliable, its at 72,000 miles now.

 

[UnhandledException]

You didn't write units for the amount of lead in the oil in your posts, but my assumption is that they are measuring a miniscule amount of lead that corresponds to an extremely small amount of wear. It's not like there's a 1/4 pound of lead particles in your oil. Failure mode for bearing wear is low oil pressure and/or knocking noises. Have you noticed a change in the oil pressure when the engine is hot and at idle? Any new noises?

As long as the bearing surfaces retain a properly pressurized oil film between them you can continue to have slight wear for many years and lots of miles.

The measure of unit is ppm. All other metals are perfect except lead. There is no rod knock noise. Only the typewriter tick at idle to 1200 rpm which disappears above 1200 rpm. Again, this has been there since day one. No issues with oil pressure.

Blackstone says the bearings are made up of lead, copper, and steel. If one day copper starts going up, thats a bad sign.

No way to know unfortunately without tearing apart the engine:(

 

[Hack]

I'm not sure what PPM means in this context, because I assume the fragments of lead are extremely small, but their sizes are somewhat random. So I have a little trouble trying to mathematically decide how much wear that really means. If there are 7 atom-sized parts of lead per million molecules of oil, that's nothing. If there are 7 parts of lead per million oil molecules and those lead parts are 1 oz each, then that's a lot. I don't think PPM is an especially meaningful measurement unless there's additional definition given.

Frankly it triggers my BS meter. I'm sure it's just because I don't know enough about how they are measuring and what the units really mean.

Edit: anyway that doesn't matter. Based on your lack of symptoms, I assume it's slow and normal wear similar to what any engine would experience.

 

[UnhandledException]

I'm not sure what PPM means in this context, because I assume the fragments of lead are extremely small, but their sizes are somewhat random. So I have a little trouble trying to mathematically decide how much wear that really means. If there are 7 atom-sized parts of lead per million molecules of oil, that's nothing. If there are 7 parts of lead per million oil molecules and those lead parts are 1 oz each, then that's a lot. I don't think PPM is an especially meaningful measurement unless there's additional definition given.

Frankly it triggers my BS meter. I'm sure it's just because I don't know enough about how they are measuring and what the units really mean.

Edit: anyway that doesn't matter. Based on your lack of symptoms, I assume it's slow and normal wear similar to what any engine would experience.

I have asked this question to blackstone and waiting for a response.

I have also asked them about the right method of filling the sample container. I think I have not been consistent in how I take the sample as far as when/how I fill the sample container during the draining process. For example, in this last sample I filled the half of the container a little after opening the drain plug and the last half was towards really the end. The thinking was I would get a bit of the oil thats at the bottom of the sump and a bit at the top. Historically, in the very early samples I sent to them I always filled up the container all the way right after draining the oil. I dont know if this can be a reason for some discrepancy. So it might be that I was getting the "clean" oil in the previous samples but in the last sample I really filled half of the container with pretty much the bottom of the sump's oil.

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