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One upon a time there was an elf who decided to change the oil in Santa's sleigh just before Santa needed it to make his runs. Some of you may not know it, but an engine is now required as standard equipment in all freight sleighs ever since the reindeer unionized. The elf looked on the shelf and spied a jug of expensive synthetic oil he'd been saving for just such a special occasion. Now this sleigh had plenty of flying miles on it and elf legend had it that a sudden change from dyno oil to synthetic was ill-advised in such a well used sleigh, especially if the seals had not been recently replaced or there were oil stains in the snow in amongst the reindeer droppings. But Santa's sleigh deserves nothing but the best and in these tough economic times even Santa wants his sleigh to last as long as possible and have better mileage.
Ignoring the wisdom of other elves, he went ahead and changed the oil to synthetic, but at least he remembered to use a Mann filter. "Hmmm!", said the elf, "that jug sure was heavy. Well, what a good deal, I got 4.4 litres of oil when I usually only get 3.8 litres." "Oops!" said the elf, "I may have overfilled the sleigh a bit. The dipstick says I have, too. I have a bad feeling coming on. I should have known better, but it's getting late and I'm due at the Claus' for dinner. How bad could it get if I just leave it for a day or two and deal with it then? Hopefully the level will go down a bit as it flows into the new oil filter." Now elf legend has made it quite clear that overfilled oil is prone to getting into and partially blocking the crankcase oil breather box, possibly plugging it and causing back pressure to push oil out past any poor seals, whether at the front of the cam, the intermediate shaft, the crankshaft, or (horrors) the rear main seal.
So the elf came out to the sleigh in the morning to warm it up for a flight. "Oh, my!" said the elf, "there's a bit of oil on the clean snow I need to wipe up or Santa will be mad. Looks like it's dripping out of the belly pan under the front of the sleigh. Maybe the seals are a bit dry and the synthetic oil needs time to bed in those old seals. In the meantime, I'll clean it up and also drain off a bit of that excess oil while I've got the time." The drained oil was filthy indeed. He checked the oil level before Mrs. Claus took the sleigh out for the day as she needed to gather more presents. On her return she told the elf that some kind of orange light on the sleigh dashboard had started blinking on the way home. The elf told her not to worry, perhaps it was just the light bulb in Rudolph's nose not making good contact and he would look into it so other air traffic wouldn't complain. Horrors, that wasn't the bad bulb light, that was the oil pressure light. More horrors, the oil level wasn't even registering on the dipstick now, yet the oil plug was still securely in place. Yech, the tailgate window on the sleigh was coated in a gooey slime, and it wasn't from the reindeer. Yech even more, there was oil weeping out all over from the timing belt cover and the belly pan was a mess. Mercifully there was no oil running out around the bell housing. The elf then knew the error of his ways.
Fortunately, being at the North Pole, the elf kept a reasonable collection of replacement parts for the sleigh including a good set of Elring oil seals and a nice new Continental timing belt. It was time for the elf to stop his misguided experiment with synthetic oil and realize it would be a much better idea to use dyno oil specifically designed for high mileage sleighs as it maintains good viscosity over a wide range of temperatures, whether at the North Pole or at the equator, contains adequate detergents and has special seal conditioners to help keep them nice and supple. In the meantime, the elf is on Santa's naughty list. He has quite a mess to clean up and will have to work during the holidays when he should be relaxing with the other elves. The same elf also has to install the emergency brake cable he broke in Santa's other sleigh. The part is scheduled to arrive at the North Pole on Christmas Eve in a commercial sleigh.
One moral of the story is that even a half-smart elf is capable of committing quite a bad syn. Yet it's not a sin to syn if the seals are in good shape. Or to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, “Syn is not hurtful because it is (sometimes) forbidden, but it is (sometimes) forbidden because it can be hurtful”. Or even Mae West, “It ain't no syn if you make a few mistakes now and then, just so long as you don't break any(thing).”
The elf wishes one and all a Merry Christmas!
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