Dear Digesters -
The question of motor oil in LBCs has once agail reared its slippery little
head. A few years ago I was approached to be the US distributor for
Penrite Oil Products. This company is out of Austrailia but its major
marketing thrust was in the UK. There was a warehouse full of the stuff in
the San Francisco area but no one was trying to sell it (a very long and
stupid saga of sickness, government assistance and personal loyality). The
British managing director and I had worked out a business plan and we were
waiting for the project to fund when it was aborted due to the fact that
the management, though thinking that I was the right guy, had neglected to
tell us that they were looking for a wealthy player or one who knew wealthy
players so it didn't have to be funded from down under.
Anyhow, I was required to read a whole lot more about lubricating oil than
I ever would have in the first place and boy was I pissed when they pulled
the plug! I don't ever want to sit around and talk oil theory
again...........but basically oil is blended from different quality and
viscosity oils that come from the same barrels but at different stages of
the refining process. The "heavier" or larger molecule "bright" oil is
skimmed out of the process like cream off of milk (I know some of you will
remember that reference). There are two or three other qualities of oil
that are extracted. The easiest to extract and the most plentiful are the
cheapest and the "skimmed cream" is the most expensive.
Motor oil is a blended concoction of different weight oils that when mixed
and run through a "eyedropper" drip test, are labeled what "weight" they
are. While heavier oils should be more expensive, it is cheaper to use
more cheap mid weight oil and less expensive "bright" oils in the mix. To
complicate things a bit more, there are chemical oil modifiers that allow
for Multi Weight oils and car "improve" the viscosity of any oil. This is a
super simplification, but Penrite uses more heavier "bright" oil in their
blend and leaves out all of the additives that might be harmfull to an old
car and puts in any additive that is beneficial including a multiweight
modifier.
Is Penrite good oil? I was only able to test one batch in my '50 MGTD with
a never-been-opened 88,000 mile engine in it. It increased hot oil
pressure at idle from 22psi to 26psi. I liked it and would have been proud
to sell the product. BUT in my research I found that their blend was
relitively easy to duplicate (in large, very expensive quantities) and was
not pattenable so I put in the business plan that any large oil company
could copy the blend and go into competition with Penrite. I understand
that Castrol has since brought out it's own line of "classic car oils."
I also found out that there is a simular product marketed by Shell in the
US as Shell Rotella 20-50 for big rigs and a more commercial blend called
Shell Truck Guard 20-50 for campers and off-road use. I've used this in my
TD and all of my Minors to great results. In comparison, Castrol GTX 20-50
is as thin as salad oil! As for new cars that use 5-30W oil, they have
smaller oil galleys and higher pressure pumps that feed parts with closer
tollerances and heavier oils could slow down the flow and cut lubrication!
Most of the new oil blends are more chemical additives than real oil
anyway, but they are correctly formulated for new cars. See you on the
Funway - Rick Feibusch
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