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Spermaceti (whale oil) based lubricants handled much higher temperatures than petroleum based lubricants. That was why automatic transmissions used spermaceti i

Spermaceti (whale oil) based lubricants handled much higher temperatures than petroleum based lubricants. That was why automatic transmissions used spermaceti instead of petroleum based lubricants. That's also why the shift away from spermaceti impacted reliability: automatic transmissions in the 1970s needed lubricants that handled higher temperatures. Fun fact: Spermaceti is actually a wax, not an oil.

dsfyu404ed 4y ago
The magnitude of the claim is contradicted by the lack of circumstantial evidence. If the difference was that stark aren't there old timers talking about how the old whale oil stuff was so good and why don't people find gallons of it saved here and there the same way you find lead paint or R12 refrigerant? Why isn't there some body of tribal knowledge saying that transmissions sucked in the 70s like we have for engines? I don't doubt for a minute that the government would ham-fistedly ban something without a viable alternative and that the textbook engineer types would crunch numbers on the replacement and conclude that "it'll be fine with no changes to our hardware, run it" leading to a higher failure rate, but 8x failure (or even 5x failure rate, to account for increased number of automatic transmissions out there) rate? That's absurd. I'd love to read the source for the claim but it's a paper version of a trade publication...
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  > If the difference was that stark aren't there old timers talking about how the old whale oil stuff was so good When I was wrenching on cars in the 80s there absolutely were! We're talking about 50 years ago so you might need to find some older old timers but this was totally a thing.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    Due to my hobby I hang out with mechanically inclined men aged ~30-70. I have heard them praise all manner of things from years past. If there's one thing they agree has pretty much constantly gotten better with no regressions along the way it's automotive lubricants, at least up until the point where they took the zinc out of motor oil. Now, I suspect there definitely are some regressions, but they're definitely small enough to get lost.
    - giraffe_lady 4y ago
      I don't know how good whale oil transmission fluid actually was btw, I didn't experience the transition. I remember older people talking about how much better it was. But like most times when people talk about how much better something used to be, I assume it was mostly not as good as they remember it.
    - zokier 4y ago
      But even 70 year old today would have been only 20 years old in 1973 when whale oil was banned, so likely they would have had only very few years of experience if any of using whale oil
    - ROTMetro 4y ago
      The positraction in my 1967 GTO REQUIRED whale oil to the point I was buying 'New Old Stock' in the 90s.
sidewndr46 4y ago
This doesn't make any sense, because sperm oil was known for its low temperature advantages. Not its high temperature ones. Even in 1975 the problem cited was corrosion: https://www.nytimes.com/1975/04/17/archives/transmission-problems-in-cars-linked-to-ban-on-whale-killing.html https://www.nytimes.com/1975/04/17/archives/transmission-pro... "The fittings between the cooling unit and the radiator gave no trouble when whale oil was the fluid, but the substitute allowed the fittings to corrode. " The resulting corrosion allowed mixing of oil and coolant. Causing issues in both, although the transmission is going to be the first to have problems. I will also point at the idea that the lack of sperm oil caused this is....stupid. The way you avoid this entire problem is by using a device called an oil cooler. It's a separate finned radiator from the coolant radiator. If it leaks you get a little pinhole leak. Then you replace it & topoff the fluid. Automotive manufacturers insist on using combined units because they are being cheap and don't care about the long term practicality of a vehicle. So even if there was some amazing advantage to sperm oil, it neither prevented this specific problem nor did the ban on it cause it.
- hinkley 4y ago
  The fact that engines are designed so that coolant and lubricants can mix has always left me a bit suspicious of planned obsolescence. I think realistically it’s a limitation of the casting process, but it is to me the dumbest part of internal combustion engine design. Point the channels in two different directions on the casting, and only a cracked block should allow them to touch.
  - sidewndr46 4y ago
    but that is unrelated. Automatic transmission fluid isn't circulating through the engine on any vehicle by design that I have seen. Plenty of vehicles with a standard gearbox just use the engine oil as the transmission lubricant. In motorcycles this is called "unit construction". I've heard of some older Saabs that did this as well.
    - hinkley 4y ago
      > The resulting corrosion allowed mixing of oil and coolant. Why is that unrelated?

dsfyu404ed 4y ago

The magnitude of the claim is contradicted by the lack of circumstantial evidence. If the difference was that stark aren't there old timers talking about how the old whale oil stuff was so good and why don't people find gallons of it saved here and there the same way you find lead paint or R12 refrigerant? Why isn't there some body of tribal knowledge saying that transmissions sucked in the 70s like we have for engines? I don't doubt for a minute that the government would ham-fistedly ban something without a viable alternative and that the textbook engineer types would crunch numbers on the replacement and conclude that "it'll be fine with no changes to our hardware, run it" leading to a higher failure rate, but 8x failure (or even 5x failure rate, to account for increased number of automatic transmissions out there) rate? That's absurd. I'd love to read the source for the claim but it's a paper version of a trade publication...

giraffe_lady 4y ago
> If the difference was that stark aren't there old timers talking about how the old whale oil stuff was so good When I was wrenching on cars in the 80s there absolutely were! We're talking about 50 years ago so you might need to find some older old timers but this was totally a thing.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  Due to my hobby I hang out with mechanically inclined men aged ~30-70. I have heard them praise all manner of things from years past. If there's one thing they agree has pretty much constantly gotten better with no regressions along the way it's automotive lubricants, at least up until the point where they took the zinc out of motor oil. Now, I suspect there definitely are some regressions, but they're definitely small enough to get lost.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    I don't know how good whale oil transmission fluid actually was btw, I didn't experience the transition. I remember older people talking about how much better it was. But like most times when people talk about how much better something used to be, I assume it was mostly not as good as they remember it.
  - zokier 4y ago
    But even 70 year old today would have been only 20 years old in 1973 when whale oil was banned, so likely they would have had only very few years of experience if any of using whale oil
  - ROTMetro 4y ago
    The positraction in my 1967 GTO REQUIRED whale oil to the point I was buying 'New Old Stock' in the 90s.

sidewndr46 4y ago

This doesn't make any sense, because sperm oil was known for its low temperature advantages. Not its high temperature ones. Even in 1975 the problem cited was corrosion: https://www.nytimes.com/1975/04/17/archives/transmission-problems-in-cars-linked-to-ban-on-whale-killing.html https://www.nytimes.com/1975/04/17/archives/transmission-pro... "The fittings between the cooling unit and the radiator gave no trouble when whale oil was the fluid, but the substitute allowed the fittings to corrode. " The resulting corrosion allowed mixing of oil and coolant. Causing issues in both, although the transmission is going to be the first to have problems. I will also point at the idea that the lack of sperm oil caused this is....stupid. The way you avoid this entire problem is by using a device called an oil cooler. It's a separate finned radiator from the coolant radiator. If it leaks you get a little pinhole leak. Then you replace it & topoff the fluid. Automotive manufacturers insist on using combined units because they are being cheap and don't care about the long term practicality of a vehicle. So even if there was some amazing advantage to sperm oil, it neither prevented this specific problem nor did the ban on it cause it.

hinkley 4y ago
The fact that engines are designed so that coolant and lubricants can mix has always left me a bit suspicious of planned obsolescence. I think realistically it’s a limitation of the casting process, but it is to me the dumbest part of internal combustion engine design. Point the channels in two different directions on the casting, and only a cracked block should allow them to touch.
- sidewndr46 4y ago
  but that is unrelated. Automatic transmission fluid isn't circulating through the engine on any vehicle by design that I have seen. Plenty of vehicles with a standard gearbox just use the engine oil as the transmission lubricant. In motorcycles this is called "unit construction". I've heard of some older Saabs that did this as well.
  - hinkley 4y ago
    > The resulting corrosion allowed mixing of oil and coolant. Why is that unrelated?