Publisher's Note: Welcome to our 37th edition of Tech Tips Tuesday on "Assembly Lube Importance: Essential for Engine Builds".  We'll be re-publishing an edition of AMSOIL Tech Tips for you every Tuesday.  Click on the Blog Category "Tuesday Tech Tips" to see everything published to-date.

Assembly Lube Importance: Essential for Engine Builds

John Gardner: Len from AMSOIL, would you ever dream of building an engine and not putting any motor oil in it?

Len Groom: Not unless I wanted to build two 

John Gardner: Absolutely. Welcome to this AMSOIL Tech Tip. It's all about the assembly lube, and the best thing we can do is actually demo it for you.

We've got this old engine over here. You wouldn't do it on this engine, but it's a good way to show it to you. Here's a cam bearing right here. So, Len, if you give me a little assembly lube, what we're doing is we're actually putting a coat of oil in between the bearing and the camshaft because we don't want any dry starts. That's the bottom line, and that's going to do the job right there.

Why do we do that? Well, you can look right here; you actually see these oil galleries going around the whole engine, and the oil has to be pumped through there to lubricate the bearings, and there are all kinds of bearings inside that engine, Len. You've got a phenomenal product to build an engine with. Tell me a little bit about it.

Len Groom: Right, and the reason this product was designed is because of everything that you were talking about there. It takes some time for that to happen, so the engine could be running without oil pressure. So, this product is designed to come in there and provide protection until the oil gets there.

There are a couple of neat features. It's got a real high viscosity base oil. It is synthetic, so it does move pretty easily when we go ahead and apply it to that bearing. But there's also some tackifier in there that's going to help hold it in place. That's that sticky stuff where you get those strings between your fingers.

John Gardner: Yeah, and you can see that now. There's a fine line; it's not dripping off of there, which is a good thing, but you don't want it like glue either.

Len Groom: Exactly, you want it to stay in place but only until the engine, the pressurized oil gets there.

John Gardner: Now, you guys have break-in oil that kind of helps with that. Talk a little bit about the break-in oil. Why do I want to add that, and what happens to the assembly lube after that?

Len Groom: Well, that assembly lube is designed to get out of the way as soon as the pressurized oil shows up. Our break-in oil, also heavily additized, is designed specifically for engine break-in. So, they're designed as a system to work together.

John Gardner: Absolutely, so you want to use them both, so your bearings don't end up looking like this. That's not a good deal. Make sure you use the assembly lube and the break-in oil.