Oil Pan Drop 90K/45 years

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A few weeks ago, I had the engine out of my MG and while it was out decided to change the pan gasket. I'm not sure if the engine had even been out of the car.

In any case, the guy I bought the car from owned it for 5 years, and he'd always done annual(fall) changes with Castrol GTX. I drive it a bit more than he did, so I generally do bi-annual changes-one at the 3K interval, and one right before I put it away for a few weeks in January/February. I use VR-1. 3K is the manufacturer interval, and although I don't like it on newer cars it makes sense to me on old tech engines like this.

I've posted pictures of the top end before-the only issue is a small amount of varnish on the rockers.

When I pulled the pan, there was a small amount of solid "crud" in it that was non-magnetic and crumbled in my fingers like carbon. Aside from that, I thought things looked pretty darn good.

I am getting some blow-by, so may do piston rings in the next few years(they can be done on this engine with the block in place). The still has 65 psi cold idle oil pressure, 60 psi hot at speed, and 45 at hot idle. Although the rings show some of the wear on the engine, the oil pressure shows that it's overall a healthy engine. The compression is also a bit low in absolute terms for this engine(140 psi vs. the expected ~160) it's at least consistent.

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Originally Posted By: FordCapriDriver
Originally Posted By: JC1
It looks pretty good for a 45 year old car. What oil are you currently using?

Valvoline VR1 conventional 20w50 i assume since he just said " VR-1 "


Correct. VR-1 20W-50.
 
Originally Posted By: FordCapriDriver
Post some more pics of bearings, cylinders, camshaft etc... if you can, i'm going to start using it myself and i'm curious.


Unfortunately, what you see above is all I have.

The engine was out for a trans swap, and I just grabbed these photos since we were doing "might as wells" and changed the pan gasket. This was as far as it came about. I guess I could/should have snapped photos of the tappet inspection covers while they were off. You can see two cam lobes at the left of some of the photos, and I did a "manual inspection" of them by sticky my hand up into the block to feel the tops of the ones I could get to. All were nicely rounded with no flat spots or "rough spots" that I could feel.

If I do the rings on it, the head(of course) will come off and the pistons will come out. It will get new rod bearings, and I'll probably do the three center mains while I'm in there. Unless I have an overwhelming reason to pull the engine, I won't do end bearings(rings, rod bearings, and the center mains can be done in place). I'll certainly take pictures at the time.
 
Looks impressive for the age. I'd keep the VR-1 and add a can of BG109 at each change.

I'd also do a ring soak with Break-Free (carbon gun solvent) overnight or over weekend. Big shot in each cylinder and let it sit. Put plugs back in and fire it up. Drive around the block. Come back and change oil.

I'll bet that between the ring soak and the BG109 the compression will come back up some
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Whenever Ive pulled the pans on my 20-30 year old BMW and MBs, there's no appreciable sludge or mess.

If youre not driving a sludgemonster toyota or running horrid, poor maintenance intervals and practices, I dont think there's a lot to worry about...
 
Other than it's rubbish on fuel economy and not much good if you live somewhere truly cold, 20W50 is in many respects the ideal oil. Nice photos...
 
Originally Posted By: FordCapriDriver
VR1 has a lower than average detergent conent, maybe try a 15w40 HDEO like Delo 400 or Shell Rotella next time?


Doesn't need to add any additional detergent if thats how clean it is inside. If it gets low mileage and annual oil changes, I wouldn't change a thing. (Other than I would change it every few years instead of annually)
 
By the way, here are a few top end photos. The first was from when the engine was out(I didn't take a close-up) while the second was from adjusting the valve lash a few months back.

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I know that my fall oil change might be a bit conservative, but knowing that this engine is throwing a decent amount of combustion gas into the crank case I'd rather it sit out the winter lay-up in fresh oil.

In any case, thanks for confirming the opinion I'd formed that I just need to keep doing what I'm doing.
 
Originally Posted By: mjoekingz28
Looks freshly painted.


The guy who was helping me snuck out at 5:00 in the morning and put a coat of gloss black on it
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. I just wish that we'd had MG Maroon, which actually started showing through on the engine once the grease started coming off.

With it out, we did paint several parts(including getting the oil pan a nice, blingy silver and the fan a nice bright yellow) and spent some time on general clean-up. It's nice now when I drop a part down in the engine bay that I don't have to dig in 40 years of greasy [censored] to find it.

A quick dust with a rattle can takes about 10 minutes when you can get to the part easily, and gives you some rust protection. That's certainly important on an old British car!
 
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