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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