Gary,
In your first notice to the list about the HD30 being ok for start up
but the high detergent nature should not be used for long term.
Listers, does the HD stand for heavy duty or high detergent? My thoughts
were that single weight oils are non detergent.
Mark
----- Original Message -----
From: <Editorgary@aol.com>
To: <healeys@autox.team.net>
Cc: <bsgil99@direcway.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 12:31 PM
Subject: Oil for Vintage British Cars
> I'm doing an article on basic British Car maintenance for Sports Car
> Market
> magazine and also, incidentally, rebuilding the engine on my MGA, so the
> topic
> of oil is very important to me.
>
> Here's what I understand is the conventional wisdom:
>
> Nearly all oils for gas engines have reduced or removed the additive zinc
> dithiophosphate (ZDDP) from their oil because of negative effects on
> catalytic
> converters in order to meet new American Petroleum Institute (API)
> standards.
> However, this additive was essential to long-term survival of tappets and
> cams,
> i.e. in all vintage British engines.
>
> Having researched most oils on the market, the conclusion is that only two
> oils still on the market still have this additive, Castrol 20W50 GTX and
> Redline
> 10W30 or 10W40. Castrol HD30 still has the additive, so would be
> appropriate
> for the first 3000 miles on rebuilt engines, though because of the
> high-detergent nature, would NOT be appropriate for gearboxes.
>
> I know this topic has been bandied about on this list, so for you
> technical
> folks out there, is this the latest word? Are there any other oils that
> might
> still have ZDDP (e.g. I've heard that Valvoline Racing oil might), Are
> there
> other oils, such as Amsoil, that don't have to meet API standards and so
> might
> still be usable in our engines?
>
> Thanks for your input.
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