I need to get some oil, for my xflow, and as im at work, cant find out what i need
whats the best stuff?, i always used to use castrol gtx, but thought that was a bit out of vogue now
steve
[Edited on 11/5/11 by steve m]
http://www.merlinmotorsport.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=3875?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=Shopping
[Edited on 10/5/11 by Surrey Dave]
Thanks Dave,
at 33 quid a gallon, that will be half what my car is worth!
20/50 Oil for Older engines is what they advertise.......................................
Under a tenner, I've never heard of anyone's engine seizing due to cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep oil, have you?
Duckhams do a 20w50 'Classic Motor' oil, that's what I used when I had a Crossflow, around £17 for 5 litres
Any of the cheap 20w50 will be fine,we don't tend to do much milage so if you change the oil and filter once a year the engine will be fine, if you do a lot of track days, more frequent.
Try to find one that doesn't stain your drive or garage floor.........
quote:
Originally posted by norfolkluego
Duckhams do a 20w50 'Classic Motor' oil, that's what I used when I had a Crossflow, around £17 for 5 litres
I'm a firm believer in using the grade of oil specified by the engine manufacturer. The tolerances will always be much greater than found in
modern engines.
At my last oil change I bought some Millers Classic 20W50 oil. It's probably better quality than any oil that existed when the engine was new!
quote:
Originally posted by britishtrident
quote:
Originally posted by norfolkluego
Look for any decent quality 10w/40 semi or fully synthetic that also meets an API spec for diesel oils.
....like castrol magnatec 10w/40 (A3/B4) which you can get just about anywhere these days (I think asda were selling it dirt cheap at one point)
britishtrident - 11/5/11 at 07:15 AMquote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
I'm a firm believer in using the grade of oil specified by the engine manufacturer. The tolerances will always be much greater than found in modern engines.
At my last oil change I bought some Millers Classic 20W50 oil. It's probably better quality than any oil that existed when the engine was new!
Straight SAE 30 was what Ford specified when the Kent engine came out, at the end of production 10w/40 was the spec for temperate climates.
David Jenkins - 11/5/11 at 07:40 AMYou sure? Hmm - well, you live and learn!
macc man - 11/5/11 at 08:47 AMI have found that synthetic oils are becoming much cheaper these days that you may as well use these instead of mineral oils.
Must be the way forward IMHO.
dhutch - 11/5/11 at 10:13 AMquote:
Originally posted by steve m
Thanks Dave,
at 33 quid a gallon, that will be half what my car is worth!
Its not free, but if you hunt around you can get a better price than that, certainly appears to be the choice if you want the best, atleast im using it in the CVH atm.
britishtrident - 11/5/11 at 03:08 PMThe Kent engines are prone to black sludge forming in the oil Ford had serious bearing problems with the early Kent engines mainly due to a combination of the unsophistaced oils that were in general use in those days and undersized oilways and oil filter. In 1965 Ford modified the Kent bottom end just enough to ensure decent bearing life and the oil manufacturers increased the ammount of detergent and anti-varnish additives in the oil.
Before that even as late as the late as the 1970s engine oils that were blended to meet the API spec for petrol engines generally didn't contain much in the way of detergent additive.
Straight SAE 30 and SAE20 oils were still being sold in garage forecourts as late as 1970.
In the late 1970s & early 1980s because of the rising cost of crude oil manufacturers started to use cheaper feed stocks to produce engine oils this resulted in a lot of engines (especialy the Ford Pinto which suffered badly from worn camshafts) having major problems with black sludge clogging oilways and oil manufacturers were pushed into improving the additive packages used in engine oils.
Synthetic oils don't produce black sludge and have much higher flim strength than mineral oils, you really have to strip a high milage engine that has run only on synthetic to appreciate the difference it makes on the ammount of sludge deposited.
The only reason not to use modern synthetic or part synthetic oils is if the engine is of such an old design that the oils seals are made of an elastomer composed of mainly natural rubber. This tradditional material needs contact with mineral oil to prevent the seals shrinking.
The Xflo has one additional problem starting problems due slow cold cranking mainly due to the undersized inertia starter an oil with a lower viscosity at the cold end such as a 10w/40 greatly helps this.
David Jenkins - 11/5/11 at 03:13 PMquote:
Originally posted by britishtrident
The only reason not to use modern synthetic or part synthetic oils is if the engine is of such an old design that the oils seals are made of an elastomer composed of mainly natural rubber. This tradditional material needs contact with mineral oil to prevent the seals shrinking.
Any idea whether the xflow has seals made from this sort of material? Or whether modern replacements use better materials? The reason I ask is that my engine is dripping oil from the same place as the OP's after 3 months inactivity over winter.
quote:
The Xflo has one additional problem starting problems due slow cold cranking mainly due to the undersized inertia starter an oil with a lower viscosity at the cold end such as a 10w/40 greatly helps this.
Never had that problem - but my battery lives on a maintenance charger when in the garage!
cliftyhanger - 11/5/11 at 04:21 PMAnother anorak point though.
No experience of the crossflow, but I know that Triumph OHV engines need an oil that has decent levels of zinc and phophorus as the loading on the cam/cam followers is huge. No cars built in the last umpteen years have this issue, so most modern oils don't have the required quantities of these metals as they damage cats. I think SM onwards oils are the biggest culprits.
I did a bit of research, and a comma oil (20/50, or better the 15/50) in a yellow tub is pretty good. The VR1 stuff is highly regarded, especially if the car gets thrashed (hopefully it does) and can be had for under £25 a tub, however not close to me
Not bad when nasty oil is a tenner thesedays.