Oil from the past...available in the present!!!

[beanoil]

Originally Posted By: FrankN4
Originally Posted By: steve20
Frank
Your Tstat is a 195

Steve



I should have been suspicious as my temperature gauge hangs around 210 all the time.

If your Rado is anything like my Envoy, your gauges are nothing more than glorified idiot lights anyway. For example, the oil pressure sender has three outputs: 0, 40, and 80 PSI. The onboard computer takes the 40 lb output, looks at RPM and calculates that the oil pressure needle needs to be around 60 PSI. I wouldn't be surprised to find your temp gauge similar, using an input from the temp sender, and ambient temp sensor to calculate a display of 210 (coincedentally exactly where the Envoy runs also.....)

 

[Nickdfresh]

Originally Posted By: bigdreama
Quote:
Could someone explain the significance of 100% Pennsylvania crude? Other than being local instead of overseas, why is it or was it better? I thought the additive package made the oil.


I believe that conventional wisdom of the day (good old days) had it that Pennsylvania oil had less parrafin and therefore would not leave a waxy buildup in your engine.

I have no idea of the validity of this statement, I just remember hearing it.


The funny thing is that I've heard the exact opposite, but that the paraffin was a good thing in an automotive application as a lubricant. But that it did leave behind a residue...

This was the complaint of several old timers who came in with concerns about Quaker State when I ran an oil change shop in the mid-90s...

 

[G-MAN]

Originally Posted By: GMBoy
Could someone explain the significance of 100% Pennsylvania crude? Other than being local instead of overseas, why is it or was it better? I thought the additive package made the oil.


Penn Grade crude is naturally high in fully saturated hydrocarbon chains, also known as isoparaffins. This is where the term "paraffin" comes from and it has nothing to do with wax, or the old wives' tale about motor oil being made from Penn Grade crude being "wax based" and causing sludge.

The whole goal in developing the technology to hydrocrack crude and de-wax it through isomerization (think Chevron's pattented ISO-Syn technology) was to develop base oils with extremely high saturation levels and extremely low aromatic content. Motor oil makers have known for years that's what it takes to make the best oil. Before the technology existed to refine even the poorest crude into that sort of base oil, you wanted to start with crude that was already highly saturated (naturally high isoparaffin content) and with low aromatics and other impurities. And that's why Penn Grade crude was the crude of choice "back in the day" for refining into the best motor oil.

 

[G-MAN]

Originally Posted By: addyguy
Gulf oil was a stand-alone company back then, but with ARG buying rights to the name, the company has come full-circle - it is once again an old name in oil, producing engine oils out of 100% Penn crude, like it would have advertised in the 1950's, 60's and 70's.


Actually, Gulf was one of the early oil companies that tried to capitalize on the myth of Penn Grade based oils causing sludge. Gulf developed an entire marketing strategy around the supposed benefits of Texas' highly napthenic crude for producing better motor oil than that made with Penn Grade crude.

In those days ALL motor oil produced sludge. An oil high in natural solvents (naphthalene) would of course produce less sludge. But solvents are not good lubricants. Gulf knew that, and so did all the other oil companies. By the time additive technology had progressed to the point that sludge based on the type base oil used was no longer an issue, the old myth which Gulf helped to generate was firmly in place and is still alive and well today.

 

[Nickdfresh]

Thank you for that, G-MAN...

 

[440Magnum]

Originally Posted By: FrankN4

The beauty of the good old days(which never were as good as they used to be) is that you survived, you can look back on them. Things were more simple or less complex. 30 cent a quart Gulf-pride and 20 cent a gallon "high test" would take you to 75,000 miles, and that was great.



I sure wouldn't use antiquated oil formulas ever again, but the good old days were not really as BAD as some people make them out to be now.

Growing up I remember the following:

Granddad's '49 Plymouth (the 215 in my .sig) ran to about 104,000 miles before he had it overhauled in 1964. I have the receipts from that overhaul in my collection, and that overhauled engine still runs. But you have to remember, the 1949 Plymouth 215 does NOT even have a full-flow oil filter! Its got full-pressure lube which put it light years ahead of the Chevy straight six, but the only oil filtration was a partial-flow canister, similar to today's bypass filters.

Mom had a 54 New Yorker (331 Hemi) that she drove to around 120,000 miles, switched to a '62 Olds 88 (394) and ran it to about the same, switched to a '66 Satellite (361) and ran it to 150k miles, got a '73 318 Satellite, ran that to 144k miles, gave it to me in about 1979 and I ran it to 190k when the timing chain failed. I did a mild refresh overhaul during college in 82, and its still running now at 457k miles.

Dad had a '63 Valiant that ran to over 200,000 miles, no overhaul (slant-6). He sold it circa 1970 for a used '68 Ford Ranchero with a 302, and he ran that ugly thing out to 190,000 miles when the oil pump locked up and sheared the drive, and he used Enco (Esso to the rest of the world) single-grade SAE 30 in it. I put a short-block in that "cruck" and drove it for a few years in high school. Let's just say the chicks didn't dig it.

I could go on through another few cars to bring us up to 1990 when I generally started using synthetics, but suffice it to say that every car that went through my family was still running well AT LEAST to over 100,000 miles well before that. The 66 Polara I eventually inherited finally ran to 280,000 on the original 383- which still ran when I built a new 440 for it a few years back. None of those cars ever got anything remotely approaching the quality of today's synthetics (mostly Enco/Exxon oils), but they got good basic care and they all very solid engine designs to start with.