My personal feeling is that the limiting factor in the durability of these engines is usually the cleanliness of the incoming air (IOW the oil-bath filtration).
Relative to water intrusion...the engine oil emulsifies water pretty easily, so it "disappears" instead of puddling underneath the main oil level ala gear oil in a transmission.
However...once you get to the boiling point of water, 212F, there's nothing that can really hold it back from turning to a vapor. There is no chemical bonding between the oil and water, just fine mixing.
Newer vehicle engines use positive ventilation (PCV) which is actually metered leak around the throttle blade on a gasoline engine. These older engines just have a vent/breather ...so there's not a "driven" airflow.
I'd worry a little bit about the combustion acids building up over time...but the modern oils are very well equipped to deal with them....much moreso when the engines were new.
I have 2 LPG forklift engines which get used moving pallets and machinery around my shop, probably mostly about 20 hours of idle per year...the oil comes out pristine...golden/clear like it just came out of the bottle, yet I still change it once a year out of principle.
This post was edited by mattofvinings at 16:59:24 12/17/08.
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Today's Featured Article - Timing Your Magneto Ignition Tractor - by Chris Pratt. If you have done major engine work or restored your tractor, chances are you removed the magneto and spark plug wires and eventually reached the point where you had to put it all back together and make it run. On our first cosmetic restoration, not having a manual, we carefully marked the wires, taped the magneto in the position it came off, and were careful not to turn the engine over while we had these components off. We thought we could get by with this since the engine ran perfectly and would not need any internal work. After the cleanup and painting was done, we began reassembly and finally came to t
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