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oil type

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fts1966 View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote fts1966 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: oil type
    Posted: Jun/02/2018 at 9:46pm
okay 1969 rambler 232 6 what type of engine oil in todays terms should i be using as well as additives to oil if any and also gas lead subtitle   the car is very original with about 62,000 original miles.  im going to start driving it regularly unlike my father that just did maybe 500 miles a year.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote 6768rogues Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jun/03/2018 at 9:33am
Oil posts tend to get interesting. Here is the way I see it. The newest SAE specification in 1969 for gas powered engines was SD, which was the standard from 1967 to 1971. Then oil was upgraded to SE, then SF, and today it is SN. SAE certifications are backward compatible, meaning oil that is SN will meet or exceed the requirements of all earlier specifications.
That said, I use Walmart blue jugs of 10W-40 SN conventional oil in all my old cars. In the case of your 1969, it is 8 generations upgraded from what your 1969 requires and it is not expensive. Others will say they use special name brand fancy synthetic oil, and that will work just fine, but your engine does not need it and it is a waste of money. If you want to spend more money, change the oil and filter more often rather than using expensive stuff.
In a stock engine, you do not need any additives in either the oil or the gas. A highly modified engine with high valve spring rates and excessive forces might have different needs. Fill it up at the pump and go. Ethanol is said to deteriorate rubber so it might not hurt to replace the small segments of rubber hose in the fuel system. If they are old it is prudent anyway. I have never had a problem with 10% ethanol.


Edited by 6768rogues - Jun/03/2018 at 9:38am
Content intended for mature audiences. If you experience nausea or diarrhea, stop reading and seek medical attention.

Located usually near Rochester, NY and sometimes central FL.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote farna Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jun/03/2018 at 11:56am
Exactly what he said! Normal driving requires no additives or worries with a stock/near stock engine. If you have high pressure valve springs over 300# per inch you need off-road racing oil or a high pressure additive. No gas additive needed unless you're running high (like over 10:1) compression, then you might need an octane booster or mix in some race fuel.

If his is a car just pulled out of the weeds there may be an issue with rubber hoses, but if they have been replaced in the last 20 years they should be safe. Same with the accelerator pump in the carb and the fuel pump diaphragms. If everything works it's been replaced with newer components. I'm sure those have been replaced over the years since you father drove it. Even a few hundred miles would uncover any issues.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote vinny Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jun/03/2018 at 7:09pm
If your engine still uses a rocker shaft you might want to check that it is getting enough oil up top. If you see oil over the front rockers through the oil filler cap hole it will be OK. My 232 engine (67) was low miles and clogged up, wearing out rocker shafts, probably from not being driven fast enough or too infrequent oil changes. By 69 they may have corrected that problem.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Trader Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jun/03/2018 at 10:29pm
State it again - engine oil IS only backwards compatible until the oil was made obsolete by the American Petroleum Institute (API).
Go to your favorite oil manufactures web site and since AMC's are not listed put in a V8 or I6 Mustang of your year - same oil specification.
See what you get. Read the manufacturers specification sheets or just give them a phone call.
SN-RN is NOT for older motors and most SN unless the jug states "SL, SM, SN" are not good for your stock engines.
Your list will be short or none existent. The short list of "high mileage" xxW-40 or xxW-50 should be telling you something - maybe.
Or just trust that backwards compatible is forever, just like 8 tracks, beta, vhs ... vinyl is making a comeback! 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote vinny Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jun/04/2018 at 7:39am
There is a company up here selling 'Cam Oil' which supposedly has been formulated with more zinc to meet the old specs. I don't bother because from what I remember a lot of engines used to need overhaul by about 100000 miles. Today they easily go double that and I think it is because today's oils are better.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Trader Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jun/04/2018 at 12:29pm
The newer oil is better and more refined for today's overhead cam engines, no disputing that.
The problem is the old flat tappets and rockers.
Example (easy numbers): new and old engines both take 100 lbs spring to keep valves closed.
The new overhead cam engine sees 100 lbs load on the lobe tip.
The older engine cam sees the 100 lbs x the rocker ratio, typically 6:1, so the tip of the cam and the bottom of the tappet see 600 lbs.
The new oil is good to keep metal to metal contact, not be squeezed out, to 300 lbs. Good safety margin on the new engine.
The old engine will see metal to metal contact between lobe and lifter as there is nothing in the oil to prevent this.
They use to use ZDDP at 1200 or more ppm and European oils are trying a Moly additive, but both clog or reduce the effectiveness of catalytic converters. They are now putting catalytic converters on diesel engines and they are also running into engine problems.
Here, many trucking firms are getting out their old Peterbilt, Mack and International trucks so they don't have to use the urea i.e. diesel fuel additive for the catalytic converters.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote billd Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jun/04/2018 at 1:06pm
I run ordinary oil bought at Wallyworld - but NAME BRAND, instead of their brand. 
I run Mobil 1 synthetic in my Eagle, and Quaker State or Havoline in my Javelins. 
NO ADDITIVES - but if you are concerned, the oil marketed for "high miles engines" is a good choice.

I can point to information from a guy who ran scientific wear tests and ended up proving a lot of folks, and urban legend, wrong. 
In fact, he showed, as oil makers often agree (not those who buy refined oil and then market it under their name, but the big boys) that additives added later, once you put the oil in, can make wear WORSE. It's always best to use oil that already has the additives. He did several wear tests that proved some of the favorite additives actually increased wear - because to be best it needs to be blended with the oil during other processing, not in your engine.

However, the fear-mongers still persist and argue - even though science has shown, WEAR testing has shown, there's little to worry about - for one thing, the oil companies saw all of this coming decades ago and had a huge customer base with cams like ours and had to keep their cars alive. 
By the way, it's NOT the zinc in ZDDP that did the work - too bad people keep saying "you need zinc". Nope, sorry, the zinc just happened to be part of the formula. Zinc had nothing to do with it - except the side-effects to the CATS. 

Unfortunately, the way the WEB works, it's so easy to read and copy what one sees and paste it in your own site, and then another comes along and copies and pastes that, and so on, that when you do searches, you keep getting the same old tired info over and over - and no matter how many times it's repeated, that doesn't make it more true - so you have to dig past the first few pages of search results to get to the good stuff, the REAL scientific WEAR tests with various oils and additives, and the engineering perspective. 

My Javelin 390 was done more than ten bloody years ago, with a COMP XTREME cam (radical ramps) and the cam to this day still looks like new, as do the lifters (I've swapped intakes a few times and each time I check just so I can tell how good it looks - and be honest about it)
My 73 Javelin 360 has a non-stock cam in it, it's built more for performance, and I've had the intake off of it and yeah, I checked cam and lifters, several thousand miles, HARD runs and I mean HARD, and a month over ten years, cam and lifters look great.
My Eagle was done several years ago and over 30K miles ago and I beat on it, it's got a COMP xtreme 4x4 cam - again, radical ramps and it sounds like a truck engine because the lifters are shoved up and dropped back down fast so the valve are full open pretty quick and close quick at the last moment and it's doing fine with Mobil 1 oil. 
I don't run any additives in any of my cars. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote billd Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jun/04/2018 at 1:08pm
Originally posted by vinny vinny wrote:

There is a company up here selling 'Cam Oil' which supposedly has been formulated with more zinc to meet the old specs. I don't bother because from what I remember a lot of engines used to need overhaul by about 100000 miles. Today they easily go double that and I think it is because today's oils are better.


Yup - that's the whole point - the oil companies have had years to get it right and today's oils are far better, and the built-in additives are better.
Besides, zinc does nothing, it's the phosphate......... ZDDP people call "zinc" but if you added zinc, you'd gain zip. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Trader Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jun/04/2018 at 2:55pm
By all means, Mobile 1 with ACEA A3/B3 or A3/B4 classifications from their selection:
• An HTHS viscosity between 2.9 and 3.2 cP (API FA-4) • An HTHS equal to or greater than 3.5 cP (API CK-4) API FA-4 oils with lower HTHS will offer potential increased fuel efficiency, but would be restricted to newer engines designed to run on these lower HTHS viscosity oils. This may exclude many older engines found in existing fleets. Engine manufacturers are evaluating their hardware to see if engine durability, especially for ring and liner scuffing, is an issue with low HTHS viscosity oils. Taking advantage of these new oils would enable companies to meet new US Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requirements.
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