03/20/2017
OUR OIL IS KILLING OUR CARS
November 2006
Part Three
The Second part of the equation is Molybden-um disulfide (Moly). The molybonds to the zinc adding an additional, very slippery, sacrificial layer to the metal. I found out that too much of the moly will create problems; lack of this material reduces the effectiveness of the ZDDP. The percentage, by weight is from .01 to .02%, not much, but necessary according to the chemists.
Now there is no denying that there is a problem, lack of ZDDP ( Zinc-Dialkyl-Dithio-Phos-phate ) in modern oils kills at least our cams and tappets. There seems to be no known alter-native.
Our cars are a small percentage of the total market and BIG Corporate, the American Petroleum Institute and possibly government have made decisions that are detrimental to our cars. This problem isn't going away. The trend today is to lighter weight oils to decrease drag, which increases mileage. Most of these seem to be the "Energy Conservation" oils that we can-not use.
Redline oil and others are suggesting a 3,000 mile break-in for new engines! Proper seating of rings with today's lubricants is taking that long to properly seal. Shifting to synthetics be-fore that time will just burn a lot of oil and not run as well as hoped.
The "Energy Conservation" trend was first led by automakers to increase mileage numbers and secondly because the ZDDP and other chemicals degrade the catalytic converter after extended miles, increasing pollution. Most of us don't have catalytic converters and the mileage gains are not that significant.
Many oil companies may have products that will continue to function well in our cars. Castrol, Redline, Valvoline, Mobil, Shell, Amsoil and others have now commented on my original article and are making suggestions. Some companies are offering short lists of "acceptable" oils, others just one. One comp-any has responded without any substantive information in a two page "bulletin". By their account all their oils are superior and applicable. This is typical of many companies.
Some oil manufacturers are pointing to metallurgy, blaming poorly built cams and followers. This may have some validity but the bottom line is that there has been a big increase in failures with products that have been on the market for many years but are now having greatly in-creased failures. To me the bottom line is, if the lubricants are working there is no contact be-tween surfaces, it shouldn't matter what the materials used in the products are, within rea-son.
On "modern" production cars, stay with the manufacturers' suggestions. For any car produced before about 1990 the owner needs to be aware that the factory suggested lubricant may have changed and may not be applicable. Flat tappet, stock, performance or modified may be affected. MGBs from 1975 to 1980 must choose to sacrifice the cam or the catalytic converter as an example of how difficult the decisions are becoming!
Yes, there is more! Castrol does understand our dilemma and is actively looking into what it can do to support our cars. We can soon expect to see products from them with specific application to classic cars. Red Line will be offering a "break-in" oil soon after the first of the year. Shell's Rotella will be good until about June or July of 2007 with possibly nothing after that date. Delo (Chevron) will also be questionable after the new "CJ-4" standards come in the middle of 2007.
PART Three
