Oil question

Friend has 55 IH pickup and wants to use synthetic oil in it. He is sold on synthetic oils.
What synthetic has the correct additives for a flat tappet engine like that?
Ready for any and all (oil) opinions. Engine totally and professionally rebuilt.
Thanks, Richard in NW SC

Beautiful truck. Probably any good synthetic he chooses will far exceed the needs of the truck.

Good looking truck. I would use a zinc additive if it were mine.

most syn oils are full of additive packages that make them heavy duty. And thats where the problem can start...

The additives can super clean the engine... and if the gaskets are bad but goopped up, the additives will clean them and then you will have leaks everywhere from the old pourus cork gaskets. Also syn oils will react with silicon gaskets as discovered and documented by cummings... And cause them to break down and leak. The cleaning can cause clumps of sludge to break loose and then stop up oil ports if the engine is badly goopped up with sludge. In one case I know of, the owner had a toyota sludge engine and the hd oils cleaned it but the screen on the oil pump would slowly clog up and he had to pull the pan every two to three months when the oil pressure dropped off. He eventually got the engine clean enough from the hd oils that it quit doing it. Pulled the pan 4 times before it finally quit clogging the screen.

Also on very old engines at a idle, the syn oil flows with much less resistance and therefore lower oil pressure, so if there is a lot of wear, the oil pressure light will be on when at idle. Not a problem but scary to the user as you cant tell low pressure from no pressure.

And if you have a really old engine with poured babbit bearings, the new additive packages will actually scrub out the bearing material... but you woulld have to have a pretty old engine to have that problem....

If the engine is clean of sludge, gaskets are good, synthetic oil or even an hd group 3 oil will be fine.

There are 4 or 5 oils with ZDDP (zinc) added for flat tappet engines. Hemmings Motor News sells a couple, Bradpenn sells another, Joe Gibbs also sells some. Might be more.

That ol' gal will run on melted bacon fat and outlast you and I. :>)

Allan

That was funny , But heck it was the truth

You read what this guy has to say about oils . It will help you out alot
bobistheoilguy.com

If the engine was just professionally rebuilt I would suspect it was cleaned out and has new gaskets!

Let him put whatever he wants in it... It's working days are over, any oil will outlast us all!

Is it true or a rumor, that synthetic is made form natural gas?

If the tappets and cam on that engine were going to have a problem it would have been 55-60 years ago. The zinc "issue" only arises with high performance engines with high lift cams and heavy duty valve springs.


http://www.drivenracingoil.com/news/dro/training-center/articles/zinc-in-motor-oil/

What engine is that?

(quoted from post at 18:41:14 06/10/15) What engine is that?

Click to expand...

A BD220, BD264 or another size in the BD engine series. Very similar to the engines used in tractors. Some of these were used in combines and other equipment before the ag equipment came out with the C-221, C-263, C-282, C-291, or C-301.

Use whatever you want, would not worry about zinc.

I use mobil 1 in my air cooled engines.

I don't know if all synthetic oils use it but Pennzoils Ultra Platinum synthetic utilises natural gas for its base.

I've used Kendall 15W-40 diesel grade oil in every engine I've owned for the last 20 or so years and its worked well for me.Mechanic that put the preventive maintenance timing belt in Carol's Toyota Corolla with 230,000+ miles said it was the cleanest engine he'd ever worked on.The Kendall oil is sold under the Federated name here.

NO

do not use synthetics in engines older than say 1962ish. Seal designs back then aren't compatible.

Presuming he used modern seals but you never know if they were NOS they will leak. not worth the battle to fix later.

I would run a mineral oil and an additive ZDDP for cam break in. The engine builders near me will tell you what oil they recommend. Most of them have raced cars and will have a valid opinion.

Hello Richarg G,

Mobil1 would be my choice. Just make sure you use the right viscosity. The second number being the key. If the engine calls for 30w a max of 30 w rating on the synthetic.
Mobil one has been around since 1976, I was working at Mobil then......


Guido.

Does the natural gas, CH4, have fewer impurities or fewer carbon molecules that makes it better?

That one you will have to answer.

Yes..but just trying to stop the rumors out there. Synthetic oils are just fine for all engines except Babbitt bearing engines. Some aftermarket cam shafts will require special oils if the surfaces are not preharden. But that is that type of cam shaft and the processed used to build it.

All I know is synthetic oil holds up better at higher temps. Like brake fluids with Higher DOT#'s.