Motor Oil

[RadioPatrol]

Mechcanized - 4th ID - M901 ITV - 85 to 87

With the M1 and M3 we did the same. As you can well imagine, we didn't use synthetic, and I'm betting this was the cheapest nastiest 30W oil they could find. Monthly we did an analysis on the oil and the only time you changed oil is when the analysis came back with metals, or other problems (contamination) that required changing it.
This wasn't done so much for economics as it was for environment. Imagine how many tanks APC, and maintenance vehicles the Army has, and how much old oil that would be if they changed oil every three months.

Now granted we didn't run 24/7 365 but we did run daily for at least 2 hours, and when we went to the woods they did run pretty much 24/7, with a LOT of idling.
I'm trying to remember, but I think my last Bradley, I went three years without an oil change, and maybe did two or three filter changes.

Yeah but what a mess when you did have to change it ....... up on the grease rack pull a hull drain plug, remove Detroit Diesel drain plug, try not to get a shower ..... use 1 25lb bag of dry sweep cleaning up the mess

try to refill a 5 gallon oil pan with a 5 gal can crammed into the drivers compartment with out spilling 1/4 in the hull for some Inspection Officer to find later and gig you for ........ or wait till your next field exercise to mix with the water that got in and make this gooey mess that would have you @ the wash rack pulling all the deck plates, using a steam cleaner trying not to pass out or get scalded in the cramped back ....

of course the engine leaked, the tranny leaked, the transfer case leaked, the final drives leaked, the hydraulic system on the turret leaked ..........

 

[itsbob]

Yeah but what a mess when you did have to change it ....... up on the grease rack pull a hull drain plug, remove Detroit Diesel drain plug, try not to get a shower ..... use 1 25lb bag of dry sweep cleaning up the mess

try to refill a 5 gallon oil pan with a 5 gal can crammed into the drivers compartment with out spilling 1/4 in the hull for some Inspection Officer to find later and gig you for ........ or wait till your next field exercise to mix with the water that got in and make this gooey mess that would have you @ the wash rack pulling all the deck plates, using a steam cleaner trying not to pass out or get scalded in the cramped back ....

of course the engine leaked, the tranny leaked, the transfer case leaked, the final drives leaked, the hydraulic system on the turret leaked ..........

I was on 901's, 113 (Dragon Track) and M60A3 and A3 TLS in the early 80's in Fulda 1/11th ACR.. 901's were broke more often the up.. Can't tell you how many times I about knocked myself out inside one.

I used to watch people pull their tanks up on the washrack and just empty their oil right out into the drains..