[Healeys] Oil Additives

[Bob Spidell]

I think this is the kind of failure ZDDP is supposed to help prevent.  I 
doubt Mobil 1 has a lot of ZDDP in it; it was basically 'outlawed' in 
all but 20W-50--since very few modern cars use that weight and even 
fewer have flat tappets--and I don't think I've even seen M1 in that 
weight.   It doesn't sound to me like you did anything wrong with your 
driving habits; just a bit of bad luck maybe.  My last rebuild I got a 
DW 'gun-drilled' cam, which I hope helps prevent lobe wear.

Decades ago, Mobile made a 'Mobile 1' for aircraft and it was an 
unmitigated disaster; it didn't scavenge the lead in 100LL and the lead 
gunked-up rings (esp. in 'big block' Continental engines).  I heard a 
few unscrupulous aircraft owners got new engine rebuilds if they used 
it, even if they didn't have a problem (a rebuild on a big Continental 
can run $50K or more).  In the piston aircraft community, it was gospel 
that you used multi-vis oil only in the winter, and straight 
100W--equivalent to 50W motor oil--in the summer and because it 
supposedly left a thicker film of oil on the moving parts (most piston 
aircraft have hydraulic lifters).

Bob

On 4/27/2020 1:41 PM, Wayne Schultz wrote:
> Hello everyone, I recently completed a rebuild of the engine in my 
> Healey 3000. At 48K miles i noticed metal during an oil change. I 
> dropped my oil pan and found even more metal and a silver ring in the 
> block that lined up with a cam lobe. I had been using Mobil 1 for 
> years and always had good oil pressure and a very quiet motor.  I 
> pulled the motor and upon teardown I found one bad cam lobe and 
> several lifters that had mild pitting.  I thought about how I used my 
> car and came to conclusion  I, rather than the oil might be the  
> reason for the cam failure.  I drove my car every couple of weeks in 
> nice weather. This is just enough time for the oil to leave the cam 
> and lifters to drain into the pan. This meant the next time I started 
> the engine the cam and lifters might have been metal on metal.  My new 
> lifters are short bucket lifters with a drain hole to lubricate the 
> cam lobes. Now using VR-1 20/50
>
>