There was on the Lotus Seven club list a recent and very long thread on oil
by "oilman" Simon Barnard.
After reading and saving all of Simon messages (pages and pages!), I decided
the best choice for my Twin cam and A series engine is a full synthetic
15-50 - I'll get Mobil 1. Both my Lotus and Bugeye engines are presently
filled with Valvoline Racing Oil 20-50.
There is one caveat to using synthetic oil, not applying to my engines as
both are recent rebuilt - in the words of Simon:
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"Older engines will benefit from synthetics if they are in good condition
and you stick to "thicker" viscosities as these where generally specified
back in the 70's. By this I mean the likes of 10w-50 or 15w-50 or even in
some cases 20w-50 although this is going to be a mineral oil which is OK so
long as you do regular changes.
You should however consider the following:
An engine over 10 years old "might not" be a good candidate for moving to
synthetic oil. If you've been using synthetic oil with success then stick
with it, but if you've been using mineral oil, now might not be the time to
switch to synthetics. Although it is highly unlikely that the issue will
come up, the following scenario is a possibility and happens in a small
percentage of older vehicles. A vehicle with significant age which has been
maintained with mineral oil may have seals and gaskets which are dried and
cracked. In some cases, mineral oil burn-off has left behind enough deposits
around the seals and gaskets that leaks have been plugged. When such an
engine is switched over to a premium synthetic oil with a high quality
detergency package, these deposits are cleaned out, thereby exposing those
weak seals and gaskets. At that point leaks "could" occur. Of course, when
using a synthetic oil, leaks can be very costly. In some cases, the seal
swell properties of the synthetic oil will seal up the leaks, but in other
cases it will not. You have to decide whether you are willing to take the
chance. If you're engine runs fairly well and has been adequately
maintained, a good synthetic oil could do wonders for performance and fuel
economy, but the potential leaks must not be overlooked."
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As for the transmission, I will keep quiet on that one as my Bugeye PO did
not follow "expert advice" and I am still using the same "non-appropriate"
oil!
JLC
Phil wrote:I'm not familiar with regular maintenace of the 1275. I need to
change oil
and probably should renew the gearbox oil. What weights are you guys using?
Synthetic or dino?
Phil Nase
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