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Every 10k on non synthetic? I freak out if I let it go over 3500 miles between changes.
Oil recommendations 1976 440
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Gerald Morris
Senior Member
That's one of The Very Best, isn't it? About 1400 ppm Zn or so?
Gerald Morris
Senior Member
I came within a day of buying the Hot Rod & Classic Lucas formulation a month or so ago. Had it arrived on the shelf when first expected, I might have bought it then. 2100 ppm is a pretty high level by today's standards. I think the VR-1 stuff is good for ~1400 ppm.
As things evolve, there's more to a motor oil than just zddp content in the additive package. Zddp just happened to be the least expensive anti-wear additive they had at the time they decided to use one, from what I've read. Not all oils in the '70s had the same zddp levels, as I've read more recently. But most were probably above 1000ppm, I suspect. Zddp is just ONE of the anti-wear additives in the mix, not to forget the quality of the base stock oils used.
From what I've observed down here (DFW area), most of the old-line drag racers tend to gravitate toward Valvoline motor oil. Possibly because Valvoline used to advertise/promote 1/4 mile drag racing back in the '60s?
My machine shop operative would buy whatever was on sale at the local Western Auto. No brand loyalty. No problems. Some brands were more prone to oil seepage from the rubberized cork valve cover gaskets, depending upon how many "small molecules" the oil had and how it penetrated/wicked into the gasket material. Castrol seemed to be one of them that wicked. Pennzoil just the opposite, back in the '70s-'80s.
End result, most any oil of a decent viscosity that "will hold hot oil pressure" can give decent service with no problems. Even with the oil filter media we had back then. Lots of "out of sight, out of mind" issues involved here, though. Like sludge accumulation and "stalagmites" accumulating on the bottom of the heat riser passage on a small block Chevy intake manifold. Brand will make a difference in these areas. But oil change frequency can be an issue, too.
10K mile oil changes, with modern oils? Not a big deal. When unleaded fuels and catalytic converters arrived in '75, GM upped their oil change intervals to 7500 miles. Adding another 2500 miles to that, with modern oils, should not cause any problems, from my experiences. At least if the vehicles are NOT used for majority "short trip"/10 miles per trip use.
Even the current least expensive oils are probably better than the premium oils of the 1960s. Especially in the area of base stock oils being used, as the base stocks have obviously improved with time and better refining techniques. Same with oil filters, too.
Enjoy!
CBODY67
From what I've observed down here (DFW area), most of the old-line drag racers tend to gravitate toward Valvoline motor oil. Possibly because Valvoline used to advertise/promote 1/4 mile drag racing back in the '60s?
My machine shop operative would buy whatever was on sale at the local Western Auto. No brand loyalty. No problems. Some brands were more prone to oil seepage from the rubberized cork valve cover gaskets, depending upon how many "small molecules" the oil had and how it penetrated/wicked into the gasket material. Castrol seemed to be one of them that wicked. Pennzoil just the opposite, back in the '70s-'80s.
End result, most any oil of a decent viscosity that "will hold hot oil pressure" can give decent service with no problems. Even with the oil filter media we had back then. Lots of "out of sight, out of mind" issues involved here, though. Like sludge accumulation and "stalagmites" accumulating on the bottom of the heat riser passage on a small block Chevy intake manifold. Brand will make a difference in these areas. But oil change frequency can be an issue, too.
10K mile oil changes, with modern oils? Not a big deal. When unleaded fuels and catalytic converters arrived in '75, GM upped their oil change intervals to 7500 miles. Adding another 2500 miles to that, with modern oils, should not cause any problems, from my experiences. At least if the vehicles are NOT used for majority "short trip"/10 miles per trip use.
Even the current least expensive oils are probably better than the premium oils of the 1960s. Especially in the area of base stock oils being used, as the base stocks have obviously improved with time and better refining techniques. Same with oil filters, too.
Enjoy!
CBODY67
Samplingman
Old Man with a Hat
I put 30k per year on my DD, I’d go broke if I did that, LOL. The maintenance light goes on at 5k, the manual says 7k, and I get a round to it at 10k. I’ve never had an issue, put over 250k on the last one and this one is pushing 150k.
As a retired engine builder far more failures were caused by long oil change intervals and or cheap brand x oils. The coking effect caused by these eng. deposits is the carbon black caused by oil break down when they are stretched beyond there limits. Carbon black build up will effect bearing wear, piston skirt wear, piston ring seizure. My recommended oil change interval is 3000 - 4000 miles w/ oil filter and a zinc additive. The proven payoff has been cars I have serviced inevitable would need repairs. In 99% percent of the times oil related wear was little to none on cars properly serviced. The oil requirements in brand x oils is totally inadequate for good long term results. Premium oils exceed manufactures specs. If you buy for your application a premium oil w/ high zinc levels, eng life will be exstended.
Ripinator
Old Man with a Hat
What ever happened to Wolf's Head and Kendall GT-1?
Ripinator
Old Man with a Hat
But, of course. . .
commando1
Old Man with a Hat
I dunno. What did I miss?
Ripinator
Old Man with a Hat
Nuffin. . .
commando1
Old Man with a Hat
Dammit.
tfrogh
Member
Depends on where you are some. Here in Maryland, I found 10w30 way to thin. Valves clattered like crazy. 10w40 has been what my old Mopars have liked for year round use (though they see precious little use in the winter).
Lucas Hot Rod and Classic oil is doing VERY well in my '72 Plymouth with the 360. It is designed for the old motors. The new stuff on the shelves at the autoparts stores are not. I get it off Amazon, but you can also find it at Walmart I believe.
Another thing I have learned, if you live somewhere where the state forces Ethanol in the gas, you probably want to opt for 92oct. Regular with partial ethanol produced a lot of pre-detonation in my car. No amount of fiddling with the carbs would make it happy. Upped to 92oct, problem went away.
My 2cents.
Lucas Hot Rod and Classic oil is doing VERY well in my '72 Plymouth with the 360. It is designed for the old motors. The new stuff on the shelves at the autoparts stores are not. I get it off Amazon, but you can also find it at Walmart I believe.
Another thing I have learned, if you live somewhere where the state forces Ethanol in the gas, you probably want to opt for 92oct. Regular with partial ethanol produced a lot of pre-detonation in my car. No amount of fiddling with the carbs would make it happy. Upped to 92oct, problem went away.
My 2cents.
70bigblockdodge
Old Man with a Hat
Wolf's head is still around. Never saw a oil smoke so much, remove oil cap with engine hot and off and looks like trying to start a fire with wet wood. Not a fan. Kendall (name) pulled out Bradford Pa, moved to Texas or some God forsaken place like that. Brad Penn is the same oil from the old Kendall refinery the green oil is the old GT-1. It is now Penn Grade 1 oil, still refined in Bradford Pa. In a RR tank car to Indiana to be bottled.
Ripinator
Old Man with a Hat
Hey! Thanks, Dave. Back in the day I remember Kendall GT-1 was touted as the hot setup for HP applications.
twostick
Senior Member
Pick ANY flavor of 15w40 you wish. They all have enough zinc and phosphorus to keep any flat tappet cam with reasonable spring pressures alive and you can get most brands at any Walmart type store. If synthetic is your thing, 5w40 diesel specs like Rotella T6, Mobil1 Delvac etc are also flat tappet friendly with Zn and Ph levels in the 1000+ ppm range.
Kevin
Kevin
NewportRbod
Member
I used Rotella exclusively in my class 8 tractor when I drove. I never had an engine failure. Injectors, alternators, A/C, tires, brakes, lights - yes Engine never. I started to use it in cars, some were pretty bad, but it never failed me.
When I bought my '70 DH43N in 1975, we'd always used Gulf motor oil and gas, but by that time, the Gulf stations had changed to Chevron and I wasn't so sure about their motor oil. When I got the car, the Chry dealer had changed the oil. With stories of 'don't mix brands" running around, I asked what they used. Quaker State, I believe.
It had an issue with higher rpm. Just before it'd shift at WOT, it'd start surging. Checked carb, checked timing, etc. So I gave up. Then I decided to try some Castrol GTX in it, which many called "motorcycle oil", back then. With that ONE change, it'd pull hard to the shift and keep on going. Obviously, it was flowing smoother?
When I bought my '77 Camaro new, I asked the service manager what oil to use, when it got 1qt low at about 1500 miles. He said Pennzoil 20W (which we happened to have in stock). He said that that's what he used to run in his engines. So I added that. When it went through that quart in about 1000 miles, I was worried that I'd bought another Chevy "oil burner". So, I opted to go with Castrol GTX 20W-50 for that first oil change. Suddenly, it was only 1/2 qt down at 4000 miles. Which was consistent for a very long time.
When I replaced the intake (2bbl to 4bbl) and upgraded the cam (Cam Dynamics 266), I was shocked to see how clean it was inside. As were some other hot rodders in the building complex. Any accumulation in the lifter valley, in the small indentations, was very soft and liquid and only in those indentations. Very clean in that respect. On the underside of the intake manifold, on the heat crossover shield, very few deposits. Smaller than I'd ever seen in a 100K mile Chevy motor and also less than others in the complex had obviously seen, too (from their surprised comments). So I dosed the cam up with the moly paste, poured two cans of GM EOS (thick) over the valley and cam lobes. Costed the back of the cam sprocket with cam lube, as well as the chain before I put the front cover back on. That was at 92K miles with a new Cloyer Plus Roller timing chain set.
As the miles accumulated well past 200K, oil consumption eased up a bit. When it got to a qt every 4000 miles, the oil was still "not dark", so I'd add another quart and change it next time it got 1 qt low. When zddp issues happened, I upgraded to Castrol semi-syn and later to Rotella T 5W-40. Pulled it out at 525K, due to all of the freeze plugs seeping. Put a 355 short block. Same cam specs, but with '86 Corvette alum heads. Break-in oil was Valvoline 30W (installer
s choice). At the first change, I went back with 20W-50 and felt the throttle response edge go away. With 10W-40, it came back. Then went back with the Rotella 5W-40 and stayed with that.
During those decades, I was in my machine shop operatives shop daily. Never did see anything "fail" from oil issues. Wear issues, like valve guide/stem wear, with accumulations on the back side of the intake valve head chunking off on a long trip, or a valve stem eroded to where the head was about to break off, in one case! A Pontiac 400, I believe? But now crank wear that couldn't be polished out or with a .10/.10 undersize cut (to true-it up, too). .030" bore cut got it back to "fresh metal".
Back in the '80s, a guy brought in a Chevy 400 small block for a rebuild. Still had the factory hone marks on the cylinders at part 100K miles. Amsoil with their recommended change intervals. Back when it was an expensive and hard to find oil and FEW people used it.
Back when Chevy had their 427/430 crate motors, I sold the last one in existence. I found the installation instructions for it in the crate. Then looked at the motor oil they recommended for it. At that time, the OEM-spec oil was SM, which was about 800ppm zddp. High lift cam, heavy springs, as the original 427HO engine had. But they recommended SM oils for it! BUT, it had THEIR cam in it, which meant it had a thick enough layer of Parkerizing on it. It was also built "quickly" on their normal engine assembly lines, and they also ran it in on their dyno stands in the plant. So THEY knew how to do it, so was completely run-in for about 30 minutes before it was "hot tested" and crated. So it had a good start on life.
On my other laptop, I have a copy of their GM Powertrain engineering study on valve lifter "weight loss" when using SM oils on a flat-tappet camshaft. The decreased zddp levels did not cause any more lifter wear than normal, under that criteria. When they ran that test, they were still building small block Chevy flat-tappet crate motors and also flat-tappet V-6 replacement crate motors. BTAIM
I believe the Kendall motor oil brand is now owned by Phillips Petroleum? It's still around and was one of the first I saw to tout "Liquid Titanium" in its oil. Many Firestone service centers use it as their oil change oil.
Granted, current motor oil standards are driven by current OEM needs. Fuel economy, emissions, etc. Yet there are still some oils in the heavier viscosity ranges in these oils, too. So as always, use the viscosity applicable for your climate. There used to be some neat information in the back of the Mobil 1 website. Giving the zddp levels of their various motor oils. Similarly, in the back of the Exxon website was a USA map of what fuels were mandated for which areas of the nation, as a "minimum spec" sort of thing. Quite interesting as to how many variations there are! Obviously, more changes in the future!
Other than the decreased zddp levels, I believe that any modern motor oil is far superior to anything even dreamed of in later 1960s, when viscosity improvers began allowing 10W-60 "super oils" to be produced. And . . . the beat goes on . . .
CBODY67
It had an issue with higher rpm. Just before it'd shift at WOT, it'd start surging. Checked carb, checked timing, etc. So I gave up. Then I decided to try some Castrol GTX in it, which many called "motorcycle oil", back then. With that ONE change, it'd pull hard to the shift and keep on going. Obviously, it was flowing smoother?
When I bought my '77 Camaro new, I asked the service manager what oil to use, when it got 1qt low at about 1500 miles. He said Pennzoil 20W (which we happened to have in stock). He said that that's what he used to run in his engines. So I added that. When it went through that quart in about 1000 miles, I was worried that I'd bought another Chevy "oil burner". So, I opted to go with Castrol GTX 20W-50 for that first oil change. Suddenly, it was only 1/2 qt down at 4000 miles. Which was consistent for a very long time.
When I replaced the intake (2bbl to 4bbl) and upgraded the cam (Cam Dynamics 266), I was shocked to see how clean it was inside. As were some other hot rodders in the building complex. Any accumulation in the lifter valley, in the small indentations, was very soft and liquid and only in those indentations. Very clean in that respect. On the underside of the intake manifold, on the heat crossover shield, very few deposits. Smaller than I'd ever seen in a 100K mile Chevy motor and also less than others in the complex had obviously seen, too (from their surprised comments). So I dosed the cam up with the moly paste, poured two cans of GM EOS (thick) over the valley and cam lobes. Costed the back of the cam sprocket with cam lube, as well as the chain before I put the front cover back on. That was at 92K miles with a new Cloyer Plus Roller timing chain set.
As the miles accumulated well past 200K, oil consumption eased up a bit. When it got to a qt every 4000 miles, the oil was still "not dark", so I'd add another quart and change it next time it got 1 qt low. When zddp issues happened, I upgraded to Castrol semi-syn and later to Rotella T 5W-40. Pulled it out at 525K, due to all of the freeze plugs seeping. Put a 355 short block. Same cam specs, but with '86 Corvette alum heads. Break-in oil was Valvoline 30W (installer
s choice). At the first change, I went back with 20W-50 and felt the throttle response edge go away. With 10W-40, it came back. Then went back with the Rotella 5W-40 and stayed with that.
During those decades, I was in my machine shop operatives shop daily. Never did see anything "fail" from oil issues. Wear issues, like valve guide/stem wear, with accumulations on the back side of the intake valve head chunking off on a long trip, or a valve stem eroded to where the head was about to break off, in one case! A Pontiac 400, I believe? But now crank wear that couldn't be polished out or with a .10/.10 undersize cut (to true-it up, too). .030" bore cut got it back to "fresh metal".
Back in the '80s, a guy brought in a Chevy 400 small block for a rebuild. Still had the factory hone marks on the cylinders at part 100K miles. Amsoil with their recommended change intervals. Back when it was an expensive and hard to find oil and FEW people used it.
Back when Chevy had their 427/430 crate motors, I sold the last one in existence. I found the installation instructions for it in the crate. Then looked at the motor oil they recommended for it. At that time, the OEM-spec oil was SM, which was about 800ppm zddp. High lift cam, heavy springs, as the original 427HO engine had. But they recommended SM oils for it! BUT, it had THEIR cam in it, which meant it had a thick enough layer of Parkerizing on it. It was also built "quickly" on their normal engine assembly lines, and they also ran it in on their dyno stands in the plant. So THEY knew how to do it, so was completely run-in for about 30 minutes before it was "hot tested" and crated. So it had a good start on life.
On my other laptop, I have a copy of their GM Powertrain engineering study on valve lifter "weight loss" when using SM oils on a flat-tappet camshaft. The decreased zddp levels did not cause any more lifter wear than normal, under that criteria. When they ran that test, they were still building small block Chevy flat-tappet crate motors and also flat-tappet V-6 replacement crate motors. BTAIM
I believe the Kendall motor oil brand is now owned by Phillips Petroleum? It's still around and was one of the first I saw to tout "Liquid Titanium" in its oil. Many Firestone service centers use it as their oil change oil.
Granted, current motor oil standards are driven by current OEM needs. Fuel economy, emissions, etc. Yet there are still some oils in the heavier viscosity ranges in these oils, too. So as always, use the viscosity applicable for your climate. There used to be some neat information in the back of the Mobil 1 website. Giving the zddp levels of their various motor oils. Similarly, in the back of the Exxon website was a USA map of what fuels were mandated for which areas of the nation, as a "minimum spec" sort of thing. Quite interesting as to how many variations there are! Obviously, more changes in the future!
Other than the decreased zddp levels, I believe that any modern motor oil is far superior to anything even dreamed of in later 1960s, when viscosity improvers began allowing 10W-60 "super oils" to be produced. And . . . the beat goes on . . .
CBODY67
www.wolfshead.com Still alive and well, it seems. Check the "Downloads" link for product information and API ratings, etc.
Don't have your speakers turned up when that website is accessed!
//kendallmotoroil.com
CBODY67
Don't have your speakers turned up when that website is accessed!
//kendallmotoroil.com
CBODY67
Last edited:
Gerald Morris
Senior Member
Seen Wolf's Head around. I think Kendall mutated to Penngrade.... some corporate buggery.
70bigblockdodge
Old Man with a Hat
Name moved to Texas. Pennzoil did the same. The Pennzoil refinery is gone. The old Kendall is still in Bradford Pa. Their bottling plant is outdated, hence the merger/partnership with the place in Indiana.
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