Oil... the never ending debate

[Docwheelhorse 2,684]

Hello all...

Today's oils much like the gas are all engineered for these new fangled engines. Lots lf alcohol, no zinc... no good stuff unless you buy the "racing" versions for big money.

 

Yesterday at the Bernardston show I picked up 12 qts of 10w20w30 (yes that's what it says) along with 3 qts of slick 50 and a dozen or so bottles of dry gas. All for $20

 

The dry gas I use to rinse out contaminated gas cans or gas tanks or whatever... usually I get isopropyl from CVS.

 

The Slick 50 I dunno... maybe mix a bit here and there into my Kohler Ks.

 

The oil--well its Quaker State and is made with genuine USA Pennsylvania Crude says so on can. I figured it's gotta be good for the old Kohlers. I looked it up and this "flavor" was last produced in 1971!!!

 

What are your guys thoughts---I change my oil often and figured this stuff has to have all the goodies today's oil doesn't

 

Happy Wheel Horsin

 

Tony

[SylvanLakeWH 26,594]

I think frequent and consistent oil changes are the key. I use 30 wt Rotella fwiw… 

 

However, I do not change the oil, ever, in my E 141. I can’t find the drain plug or filler cap…  

[ri702bill 8,744]

Tony - we used to sell Super Blend at the first Automotive Shop I worked at in 1973. Look for the rating - probably SC or so, pre-emissions, will have some zinc. I still have an unopened quart of 10-30 Super Blend in the garage...

Edited May 29, 2022 by ri702bill

[squonk 41,940]

Back in the day at the Chevy garage I started out at we had Mobil 20W20 in 55 gal drums. They had the wind up hand cranks gizmos to get the oil into the gal dispenser that always leaked some.  Then you had to go back and get the extra quart to make the 5. Most customers got that. We also had Quaker State Super Blend in a drum for the "Special" customers. Then the drum about the size of a 15 gal. drum of Quaker State "gold " grease. (Grease was gold color!) 

 

Then there was another shop where we had a 5 gal container of Pennzoil 40W for one fertilizer salesman with a 76 Caprice wagon 454 with over 300,000 on the clock. It needed the 40W to keep the oil light from flickering at idle! 

[lynnmor 7,479]

For an interesting read about vintage oils, go to Blackstone Labs and read the April, June & October 2012 reports on the eBay oils.  It is in three parts, so read to the end.

[bds1984 1,457]

Today's oil have lots of goodies, one just has to know where to look.  Read through some VOAs here.  

[Tuneup 1,433]

My old Beetle used to drink that Super Blend. Thanks - that can top was fun to see.

[Ed Kennell 39,735]

For the 50 years that I changed my own oil, I used only PeeAaa oils  Quaker State or Pennzoil..       I never had an engine failure.

 

The last few vehicles I bought included maintenance while under warranty, so now the dealers supply the oils.

[wallfish 17,193]

If you want to bring a bottle of that slick 50 to the show, I'll bring a vertical shaft lawnmower engine. We can run it with the Slick50 then drain it out, then run the engine without anything in it like they did in the old commercials. We can gamble on the time it takes to seize it up!

OR, Sell tickets for a $1 with 3 different guesses--under 1 hr, 1-3 hours and over 3 hours. The winners split the money for that guess and WHCC gets the money from the other 2 guesses?

Or, we can just do it covertly in Sparky's tractor engine without him knowing anything about the experiment!

[squonk 41,940]

5 minutes ago, wallfish said:

If you want to bring a bottle of that slick 50 to the show, I'll bring a vertical shaft lawnmower engine. We can run it with the Slick50 then drain it out, then run the engine without anything in it like they did in the old commercials. We can gamble on the time it takes to seize it up!

OR, Sell tickets for a $1 with 3 different guesses--under 1 hr, 1-3 hours and over 3 hours. The winners split the money for that guess and WHCC gets the money from the other 2 guesses?

Or, we can just do it covertly in Sparky's tractor engine without him knowing anything about the experiment!

 We had a BG chemicals guy come to the shop with their version of slick 50. He had an industrial Ford 6 on a trailer. The oil pan was held on with vise grips. He had his MOA (Motor Oil Additive) in the oil. Ran it a couple of minutes and then took the pan off. Engine ran another half hour with no oil until he turned it off.

 

1 hour ago, Tuneup said:

My old Beetle used to drink that Super Blend. Thanks - that can top was fun to see.

My 73 Vega would drink Quaker City oil. 48 cents a qt. at the grocery store in college. I'd buy a case a semester! 

Edited May 29, 2022 by squonk

[lynnmor 7,479]

I used nothing but Quaker State oil in my 1979 350 Chevy van, at first it was Super Blend and then the DeLuxe variety.  I believe is was made from skunk pee, at 79,000 miles the cam was rounded off, the rod bearings were worn to base metal and the valve guides were spent.  I rebuilt the engine completely and it has been fine with another brand ever since. This van was give good care and frequent oil changes so I blame the DeLuxe oil for the failure because that is when I noticed the symptoms starting.

[roadapples 6,983]

Those cans of oil are probably worth more unopened than they are in your engine. Was always told that Pennsylvania oils had paraffin in them...

[wallfish 17,193]

1 hour ago, squonk said:

Engine ran another half hour with no oil until he turned it off.

At full blast? Did you buy some or weren't impressed?

Just realized after reading my post, the winning guesses get nothing but their money back. --20% of the total to WHCC.

[squonk 41,940]

34 minutes ago, wallfish said:

At full blast? Did you buy some or weren't impressed?

Just realized after reading my post, the winning guesses get nothing but their money back. --20% of the total to WHCC.

@about  1000 RPM. I put some in my 10 HP Cub Cadet. engine started burning oil shortly after. 

[Docwheelhorse 2,684]

2 hours ago, lynnmor said:

I used nothing but Quaker State oil in my 1979 350 Chevy van, at first it was Super Blend and then the DeLuxe variety.  I believe is was made from skunk pee, at 79,000 miles the cam was rounded off, the rod bearings were worn to base metal and the valve guides were spent.  I rebuilt the engine completely and it has been fine with another brand ever since. This van was give good care and frequent oil changes so I blame the DeLuxe oil for the failure because that is when I noticed the symptoms starting.

Chevy had a cam / valvetrain issue in those years. Lots of burnt up cams, bearings and guides. I suspect your motor was one of those. And we will never know

[squonk 41,940]

25 minutes ago, Docwheelhorse said:

Chevy had a cam / valvetrain issue in those years. Lots of burnt up cams, bearings and guides. I suspect your motor was one of those. And we will never know

That's when I started working. Lots of guide repairs and a few cams. 1 customer with a pick up used the QS oil and they had some kind of mileage guarantee if you used their oil exclusively. He had a guide go out and it was a struggle for him to get any cash out of QS.

[JoeM 7,886]

13 hours ago, roadapples said:

Was always told that Pennsylvania oils had paraffin in them

In my early days of the 70's spinning wrenches, we pulled a lot of valve covers that looked like wax build up. I figured mostly blow by residue and poor oil detergent performance.  

 

As far as that oil having all the good stuff....I kind of doubt it. seen many worn cam and lifter issues around that time.

 

Slick 50, the old man ran it like religion. He drove his cars for what seemed like forever. I do know, I had an old Dodge slant six pick up that loved oil. He dumped a jug of slick in it . I was going to work one day and it started knocking. It used so much oil I carried a gallon of cheap stuff behind the seat. I had it knock before and knew it was a few down. Pulled over (in the middle of nowhere) and found I had not put a fresh jug in the back and was out. Drove it 13 miles to work knocking like a bad drummer. I ask the warehouse guy for some oil. He said "sounds like you need an engine". We dumped in 5 quarts and fired it up and just ticking along. The warehouse guy was amazed....me 2! Might just be something to it???

[Jeff-C175 7,203]

7 hours ago, JoeM said:

many worn cam and lifter issues around that time

 

Bought a brandy new '74 Pontiac LeMans with the 350 2bbl.  Wiped a cam lobe at about 40K miles.  Rear springs trashed at 60K.  Body rusted out badly by 80K.  Along with a ton of other stuff went wrong including transmission issues.  Mid-70s were not good years for Detroit it seems.

 

 

[wallfish 17,193]

2 hours ago, Jeff-C175 said:

 

Bought a brandy new '74 Pontiac LeMans with the 350 2bbl.  Wiped a cam lobe at about 40K miles.  Rear springs trashed at 60K.  Body rusted out badly by 80K.  Along with a ton of other stuff went wrong including transmission issues.  Mid-70s were not good years for Detroit it seems.

 

 

Yeah, back then it seemed 100,000 miles was considered toast for any US built car. The Japanese were engineering some longer lasting stuff.

[squonk 41,940]

26 minutes ago, wallfish said:

Yeah, back then it seemed 100,000 miles was considered toast for any US built car. The Japanese were engineering some longer lasting stuff.

1982 Toyota Tercel. I had to put a clutch in one and I wanted to remove the air cleaner assembly to get better  access to a bellhousing bolt. There were close to a dozen bolts to remove  just to get the air cleaner off! 

[Jeff-C175 7,203]

40 minutes ago, wallfish said:

it seemed 100,000 miles was considered toast

 

Yeah, that's my recollection also.  There was a neighborhood block party to celebrate when anyone 'turned over' the odometer!  And they actually rolled back to ZERO!  They didn't even have the 100,000 mile digit !  

 

I've got 99,975 on my Honda and it's still like new.

 

I'm still gonna have a block party if I ever put the other 25 miles on it !  

Edited May 30, 2022 by Jeff-C175

[squonk 41,940]

Still remember this day about 5 years ago. Pulled over and took the pic. 06 Tundra.

 

 

 

 

[Jeff-C175 7,203]

59 minutes ago, squonk said:

Pulled over and took the pic

 

I did the same with my old Isuzu Trooper.  Somewhere I have one for 100K and 200K.

 

I hope I notice when the Honda rolls over !  

 

 

Edited May 30, 2022 by Jeff-C175

[wallfish 17,193]

2 hours ago, squonk said:

1982 Toyota Tercel. I had to put a clutch in one and I wanted to remove the air cleaner assembly to get better  access to a bellhousing bolt. There were close to a dozen bolts to remove  just to get the air cleaner off! 

Yeah but you didn't have to do it every other week like the Detroit cars after 25-30K. Maybe once in a lifetime.

My step father bought a Corrolla wagon new. 1978 ish I think. That thing had over 200,000 on the original clutch plate. Only major service was for a new driver seat because he was heavy and would drop into the back of the seat rest so it slowly bent backwards. Other than that it was regular maintenance stuff. That car was sold to a kid down the street with 250 plus on it and he was driving it forever. I bought a little Toyota pickup with 150,000 plus, drove it hard and beat on it hard in the woods until it had over 225,000. Sold it to my neighbor and he had it for many years but didn't drive it a lot. Just say'n.

[squonk 41,940]

7 minutes ago, wallfish said:

Yeah but you didn't have to do it every other week like the Detroit cars after 25-30K. Maybe once in a lifetime.

My step father bought a Corrolla wagon new. 1978 ish I think. That thing had over 200,000 on the original clutch plate. Only major service was for a new driver seat because he was heavy and would drop into the back of the seat rest so it slowly bent backwards. Other than that it was regular maintenance stuff. That car was sold to a kid down the street with 250 plus on it and he was driving it forever. I bought a little Toyota pickup with 150,000 plus, drove it hard and beat on it hard in the woods until it had over 225,000. Sold it to my neighbor and he had it for many years but didn't drive it a lot. Just say'n.

Loved my Tundra. Would still have it if it had better seats. After my back surgery I knew I needed to do something different. I traded Toyota reliability  for a Laz y Boy seat in my GMC. We were an all Toyota family. Wife has 160,000 on her Sienna. Seats in that kill my back too.  My son had an 02 4Runner he got from me than  ran perfect but the frame was shot. One of my favorite vehicles was an 85 mini pick up 4 X 4 with the chrome wheels and a 5 spd. Barrel rolled that one. 

Edited May 30, 2022 by squonk