[Healeys] Oil Change Frequency

Alan Seigrist healey.nut at gmail.com
Thu Oct 29 23:26:36 MST 2009


My father (a pilot who flew from 1944 to 1980, type-rated in 41 different
aircraft) told me that with the radial motors they typically never flushed
the motor and didn't change oil between overhauls.  Of course most of these
motors leaked like crazy so they did fill up with new oil all the time.
Apparently the motors were designed to work with a certain level of sludge
buildup and if you cleaned it out you would lose power and efficiency.

My brother had a 1988 Honda Accord which he never changed the dealer oil and
sold the car 10 years later after he put about 150K miles on it.  No damage
to the motor....  Oil was BLACK.

Alan

'52 A90
'53 BN1
'59 Jag Mk IX
'64 BJ8


On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 10:44 AM, Richard Ewald <richard.ewald at gmail.com>wrote:

> The only maintenance for the PCV system on the cars I work on is
>
> Wait for it
>
> Are you ready for this?
>
> Changing the oil.
> The systems are engineered into the design of the engine and have no
> serviceable parts.  Assuming the owner changes the oil, they don't need
> service.  Extend the oil change intervals too far and the system gets
> clogged from burnt oil vapors which build up and plug the entire system.
> When this happens, the entire system has to be changed.  In extreme cases,
> the oil pan has to come off to clean the passages inside the block.
>
> The change over from leaded gas happened in 1975, sludging is a problem
> that
> cropped up in the last 3-5 years.  Sludging is not related to leaded gas in
> the least.  Last I heard it was more of a cold weather issue, than a warm
> weather issue (I'm In Los Angeles, so I don't follow the cold weather stuff
> to closely)  Do a Google search on Toyota +sludge if you want to learn
> more.
> Rick


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