To oil or not to Oil

[woodyarn]

I bought a 1977 Argosy 28 with 42K miles with a 454 engine. It sat behind a barn for about 10 years. I was able to start it and move it under it own power.I want to drain and replace all fluids. I was told by someone that I need to use Oil with Zink in it. He said the Zink coats the metal moving parts.
This is my first Class A and dealing with one this old, I have to consider this might be true. I'm also thinking that Lucas oil treatment would do the same thing. Does anyone have any knowledge they can share on this.
Thanks in advance
Woody

[SteveH]

I would check with Chevrolet to see what oil they spec'ed in '77, and whatever you do, don't put synthetic oil in the engine or you'll never get it to stop leaking, if it doesn't already.

[noreen&sal]

FWIW. I was told by a couple of guys who re-build engines they use Shell Rotella to break them in because it has zinc. Sal.

[richinny]

that's good to know sal. a quick search indicates that they've lowered the amount but it still has a fair amount in it.

[robert claus]

You can buy zinc additive to add to any modern oil. It is needed in older engines to prevent camshaft wear. I put Valvoline VR-1 in my '64 Alfa, because it has zinc content and could be a good choice for the 454.

[Bruce B]

Originally Posted by SteveH

I would check with Chevrolet to see what oil they spec'ed in '77, and whatever you do, don't put synthetic oil in the engine or you'll never get it to stop leaking, if it doesn't already.

This is one of those "old wives tales" that keeps circulating and repeating....
I do this for a living and we use lots of synthetic oil in lots of car engines both old and new. Something in the order of thousands of gallons of synthetic oil annually....

We get no more oil leakage on old engines using synthetic than we do in old engines using non synthetic. No more at all! Not even a little!!!!!!

I believe this "advice" comes from the very first synthetic oils when the base stock was a very different chemical than that produced today (today being the past 15 or 20 years). Castrol had a very good Q&A on this subject on their website at one time explaining the details.

On the subject of zinc, I understand that oil companies have removed the element from their additive packages as its presence hurts catalytic converters ???

There are oils formulated for pre catalyst engines that contain more zinc as it is beneficial to those engines. I personally do not believe your vintage engine will really suffer without the zinc though. Oils are so much "better" than what was available 25 years ago....
Bruce

[SteveH]

Originally Posted by Bruce B

This is one of those "old wives tales" that keeps circulating and repeating....
I do this for a living and we use lots of synthetic oil in lots of car engines both old and new. Something in the order of thousands of gallons of synthetic oil annually....

We get no more oil leakage on old engines using synthetic than we do in old engines using non synthetic. No more at all! Not even a little!!!!!!

I believe this "advice" comes from the very first synthetic oils when the base stock was a very different chemical than that produced today (today being the past 15 or 20 years). Castrol had a very good Q&A on this subject on their website at one time explaining the details.

On the subject of zinc, I understand that oil companies have removed the element from their additive packages as its presence hurts catalytic converters ???

There are oils formulated for pre catalyst engines that contain more zinc as it is beneficial to those engines. I personally do not believe your vintage engine will really suffer without the zinc though. Oils are so much "better" than what was available 25 years ago....
Bruce

Whatever you say, Bruce, but I will tell you I have put sythetic oil in three different vehicles in the last few years that were broke-in and ran several years on conventional oil, and all three started leaking oil from the rear main seal. Please have Castrol give me a call, or maybe their old wife???

[Bruce B]

Originally Posted by SteveH

Whatever you say, Bruce, but I will tell you I have put sythetic oil in three different vehicles in the last few years that were broke-in and ran several years on conventional oil, and all three started leaking oil from the rear main seal. Please have Castrol give me a call, or maybe their old wife???

I have done it on many hundreds without anything leaking....
I cant tell you why yours are!
Maybe it is time for a different brand??? Just kidding....
Engines leak oil, some more than others but synthetic is not the root cause.
Bruce

[Bruce B]

If you do not like Castrol, try Mobile One's site's FAQ's....One of the best motor oils in the world today!
Bruce

Myths About Synthetic Motor Oils

[SteveH]

Not that it really matters, but just so you know the variety of engines, one was an '04 Jeep 4 Liter 6cyl, one a 383 Chevy in a streetrod that I built, and the last one, an '08 Durmax Diesel.

All started leaking from the rear main seal after changing to synthetic oil, the two gas engines was Mobil 1, and the Duramax, Rotella.

I also use sythetic in newer engines after the first 1000 or so miles, and no leaks, but the three above had some years and miles on them with conventional oil.

[perryg114]

They replaced zinc with other stuff that does the same thing. Synthetics are good but I would probably go with a diesel synthetic oil like the Rotella-T or what ever they call it now. As long as the oil pressure it good you should be ok.

Perry

[dano]

Check out this web-site, " Bradpenn.com" this was the former Kendall/Amalie refinery located in Bradford, Pa. and they manufacture a line of oil with Zinc that will work in your 454 they may be able to help. Good luck.

[perryg114]

Why is zinc such a big deal? GO to bobistheoilguy forum and those guys can tell you everything you need to know about oil.

Perry

[Skater]

Originally Posted by SteveH

Whatever you say, Bruce, but I will tell you I have put sythetic oil in three different vehicles in the last few years that were broke-in and ran several years on conventional oil, and all three started leaking oil from the rear main seal. Please have Castrol give me a call, or maybe their old wife???

While we're trading anecdotes, I put synthetic in three vehicles too (my '91 B190 with >100K miles, my '04 Impala with 30K miles, and my '99 Cougar with 60K miles) several years ago, and not one started leaking oil. So it sounds like your experience and my experience cancel each other out.

[Wabbiteer]

Gee... rough crowd. Synthetic Oils have been around for 35 years and most of the bugs have been worked out so we have to put problems found into a date range for them to mean anything.

1980 is when the Mobil-1 variety came out, 1990 is when the market opened to other brands. So let's remember Mobil held the patents on synthetics until fairly recently, when those patents expired their competitors formulations kept 'evolving' as 'real world testing' of the trade secret oil base & additives forced some versions to just quietly 'go away' while they trumped up the 'improved' versions.

That said - way back and half a forever ago in 1996, I'd used Mobil-1 for 30k miles and then tried Castrol Syntec in my 1994 Z-28's LT-1 engine and got oil seeping through EVERY gasket on the short block, and as soon as I saw it happening, I changed it back to Mobil-1 and the seepage stopped.

Best I can tell, Syntec then was similar to the earlier version of Mobil synthetic they sold between 1974 and 1980, a 'PAO' (polyalphaolefin) oil base that can be either an oil or modified into a plastics like polyethylene - and nothing sticks to polyethylene - so it seems that it will run off metal parts in hours instead of days plus was alive enough to creep past gaskets.

PAO oils are still blended into many standard oils marketed as synthetic blends but not more than 30% by weight to help stop their tendencies of run-off, seepage and other problems that were discovered seemingly by trial and error.