Getting High-Powered Heavy Duty Pickup Using Synthetic Gear Lube

The present heavy-duty pickups are increasingly becoming high-powered to pull more loads. The availability of powerful V-10 engines and turbo-diesel has helped the modern pickup in pulling greater number of loads than what it used to be previously. The American-made pickups like the heavy trailer have seen its horsepower rise by 93% since 1981. In the last decade itself, the average horsepower has risen by 34% that was the result of intense competition among manufacturers and consumer demands for lucrative truck sales. This has led to pickups like the Ford F-350 Super Duty to tow quite heavy loads with a fifth wheel package. 

The torque, extreme loads and horsepower of the pickups passing through the differentials has led to the need for improved gear lubes. Different tests undertaken have shown the presence of industry-wide problems related to heavy duty differentials with the kind of lubricants that are used. 

In one test, a heavy duty pickup that towed up a 3.5% grade with a heavy-duty pickup pulling a 10,000 pound trailer developed lube/differential temperatures to the tune of 370F. This figure is well-above the typical petroleum gear operating range and a serious condition has cropped up known as thermal runaway common place. 

This kind of situations arise when the lubricant thins out under extreme loads and rising temperatures while the film fails which lead to contact between the metals. This results in the generation of more friction, wear, and heat that leads to the gear lubricant failure and disastrous differentials bearings and gears failure. Due to situations like this and also due to the requirement of CAFÉ as proposed by the government mandate, manufacturers of vehicle have begun using synthetic gear lubes. 

Synthetic gear lube has its own film strength which is higher, including higher temperature tolerance compared to petroleum gear lube with the additional benefit of long-lasting services between changes. 

In cold temperatures, the possibility of wear-causing situation is eliminated with the use of synthetic gear lube and which is usual with petroleum gear lubes, also known as channeling. In this situation, there is partial solidification of the gear lube in lube trailer at very cold temperatures and there is pushing of a groove by the differentials into a thickened gear lube instead of proper flowing around the gears, leading to less lubrication of the gears and bearing and resulting in accelerated wear.