[Healeys] FW: Oil again

J. Armour sebring3000 at bigpond.com
Sat Jun 20 22:57:13 MDT 2015


Oil discussion was/is very interesting. Bill's mail was of interest to me if
not all. I make the following comments from discussions over 50 years of
Healey operation but based on mineral oil;
. When I converted my race car from vegatable based Castrol R the oil
company chemist advised to flush the oil system and do one or two quick
changes of oil and filter.
.Use a good quality oil, not necessarily the best or most expensive and
change it more often. Remember oil is also a coolant and flushing process to
absorb  contaminants. Especially with cold starts and short runs where the
oil does not get hot enough to vent off moisture and fuel.
.The base lubrication fluid that seperates metal parts is  mineral oil and
is the similar in the majority of oils. The auto manufacturers have demanded
the addition of all sorts of additional materials to extend oil change
periods  and control their design limitations etc.

But although all oil companies product will comply with the nominated
standard they may start with a different base quality crude. Some oil fields
yield lovely thick honey like oil whereas other locations yield a dirty thin
base and therefore the seller must add a lot more additives to meet the
standard stated on the container.
Healey six design weakness is the early wear on cam lobes and followers. The
cam and followers will continue to open and close valves but check whether
they all have the same lift, ie the same degree of wear.

One other issue and thing to remember is that high oil pressure does not
guarantee you are getting oil into all the small clearance areas and
therefore lubrication.  I dare not mention the obvious connection to the
benefit of multi-grade oils.
For those followers of single grade oils how many people follow the manual
and operators handbooks that talk about warm up before moving off and
putting the engine/transmission under load?
An engine builder of record holding blown V8 dragster told me he uses
lubricant as low as 5W multigrade

Basically it is all black magic

From:  WILLIAM B LAWRENCE <ynotink at msn.com>
net <mailto:healeys at autox.team.net> >
Subject:  Re: [Healeys] FW:  Oil again

Greg, I don't think the brand matters much. They all have to meet the API
specification. I think all the rest is marketing.


From: glemon at neb.rr.com
To: ynotink at msn.com; healeys at autox.team.net
Subject: Re: [Healeys] FW:  Oil again
Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2015 01:02:40 -0500

Thank you Bill, although it doesn't tell me which brand to pick, your clear
explanation of the oil codes and changes in formulation give a very good
background for someone trying to muddle through the oil choice issues
classic car drivers face these days, and understand why oil
choice/availability had become a significant issue.
 
Greg Lemon

From: WILLIAM B LAWRENCE <mailto:ynotink at msn.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2015 6:58 PM
To: healeys at autox.team.net
Subject: [Healeys] FW: Oil again




From: ynotink at msn.com
To: michael.oritt at gmail.com
Subject: RE: [Healeys] Oil again
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 03:08:45 +0000

I see I'm late to the party on this topic. I was up in the Rocky Mountains
participating in the Glenwood Springs Rallye when it started and frankly I
wish I still were. However, at the risk of being called ignorant,
uninformed, commie pinko or whatever I have a little information that may be
of help in sorting out the oil confusion.

Engine oil comes in generations as defined by the additive packages which
are blended in to tailor them for specific purposes. These generations can
be traced by the API codes which are located on the container.

The API code is two letters found on the label. The first letter is either a
C, which denotes the oil is intended for use in a compression ignition
engine, or an S which denotes it is intended for use in a spark ignition
engine.

The second letter denotes the type of use intended and follows the
development of the internal combustion engine from the most primitive (A) to
the most sophisticated (I think they are at O Now). protective amounts of
zinc were dropped from the additive package at SM. Any oil before that, or
say from SD through SL, still contains zinc.

It may be true that zinc is not necessary for engines after the camshaft
break-in, but I prefer to be cautious on that score so I look for oil that
is SL or earlier. I'll let the more informed and adventurous members conduct
that experiment...

Some heavy duty oils such as Chevron Delo or Rotella are rated for both
compression ignition and for spark ignition service and will show both a C
and an S rating. In some cases those oils will still have an SM or later
rating.

The one oil type I have found that is reliably rated below SM is four stroke
motorcycle oil because motorcycles don't have catalysts. Typically it is
rated SF or SG. Since the oil has no way of knowing it is being run in an
automotive engine and my Healey doesn't know the oil it's spewing is meant
for a motorcycle I have been running Castrol 4T in 20W-50 grade quite
happily.

As for the controversy part, if we start banning contentious topics we soon
won't have anything to talk about like most modern college campuses.

Bill Lawrence
BN1 #554


From: michael.oritt at gmail.com
Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2015 06:14:11 -0400
To: javrugtman at htcnet.org
CC: healeys at autox.team.net
Subject: Re: [Healeys] Oil again

We ALWAYS talk about oil and no one seems to have the answer, so we simply
keep talking about it.
For a change let's talk about politics or religion, two topics which are
susceptible to absolute rectitude. Many or most of us do not have the
correct answers on either and someone here--perhaps an unknown lurker--may
choose to now come forward with his or her enlightenment and reveal it to
us.  

To mix a metaphor, I now listen with a jaundiced eye.

Best--Michael Oritt

On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 7:45 PM, John Vrugtman <javrugtman at htcnet.org>
wrote:
>  
> politics and religion, like water and oil, don't mix.  On the other  hand, oil
> and Healeys mix very well.
> JAV
> 
>  
> On 6/12/2015 7:16 PM, Richard Kahn wrote:
>  
>>  
>> I think topics like politics, religion, and oil should be  taboo. There is no
>> best in any of these topics.
>> Rich Kahn
>> 
>>   



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