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MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG TD TF 1500 - Motor Oil - Expensive!

$10.00 a quart! Well I guess it would give you bragging rights!
I pay 10 bucks a quart for my oil, it's the best!! Oh well. PJ






Paul S Jennings

Only the finest, hand-squeezed from dinosaurs by professional cavemen.
Geoffrey M Baker

Pretty risky milking a dino. :-)


Same supplier as Harley ?
MG LaVerne

When I think back on the cheerful way that the writers of The Flintstones happily trashed and mishmashed history, geology and paleontology, I wonder how anybody ever learned anything. Perhaps the writers went on to write speeches for political candidates :).
Geoffrey M Baker

A note from Valvoline I thought I might pass on.



Date: Tuesday, April 14, 2015
The 1200 ppm of Zinc is something that would be required for a high performance racing engine with an oversize cam application, but any stock flat tappet cam application, only requires around 800 ppm of Zinc for protection and approximately 730 ppm of Phosphorus, as Zinc itself will not serve the purpose. If you would like to use the highest Zinc content product we have, that would be our Valvoline VR1 Racing Oil, with 1300 ppm of Zinc and 1200 ppm of Phosphorus.
Paul S Jennings

Special oils with ZDDP not needed with a roller camshaft.
no cam or lifter wear.
Len Fanelli

I went on vacation with a retired chemist from Ford and the topic of tappet wear and oils came up. Interestingly their studies showed that normal oils fully protect tappets even if the oil was not changed for 10k miles or more. It got into chemistry and mirco-coatings and all sorts of stuff that I have forgotten now.

There may be other benefits from changing your oil more frequently but we were just discussing tappet wear.
Christopher Couper

A good oil is always cheaper than an engine breakdown..

Castrol Classic 20W50. 800 ppm ZDDP. 14 USD pr liter. Ouch!

regards

Jan
Jan Emil Kristoffersen

$10 per quart is not unusually expensive. Most of the top quality synthetic oils are at least that much.
Steve Simmons

According to Valvoline, flat tappet engines should not use synthetic oils. ?? PJ
Paul S Jennings

Isn't it best to use half price oil and change it twice as often? I have always been sceptical about expensive "Classis Oils" Surely oils made by the major petroleum companies will be of good quality.


Jan T
J Targosz

Some other old car owners are running Shell Rottella T or Chevron Delo 400, 15-40. Lots of Zddp. I am giving Chevron a try. Great price.



Delo 15w40 LE will have about 1200ppm of ZDDP.

http://www.chevron.com/products/prodserv/nafl/auto/docs/Chev_CJ4_faq.pdf

chad
C Huston

6 qts of Valvoline VR-1 20W-50 cost me $26.94 at NAPA yesterday. They were on sale. Bud
Bud Krueger

Just another note on oil. A few years back when I was in the heavy construction, heavy equipment industry, we used Black Bear greases and oils, which were designed for extreme use. This indirectly led to a conversation with a rep from Greyhound bus company and found out that Greyhound had their own oil re processing plant where their used oils were re processed and sent back to their shops to save money. Greyhound used re processed oil in their engines! I was told that when oil is used, the molecular structure changes and the oil actually becomes more "sticky", in laymen's terms. They said their engines held up better using those oils in the long run. He said 3 main things happen to used oil, it gets dirty, looses it's detergents and the molecular structure changes. Sorry if this is over the top. PJ
Paul S Jennings

When the issue of removing the ZDDP from motor oil became an issue I was concerned as I had a pre 1990 Chevy 350 in my 39 Ford. I contacted Castrol as that was the oil I was using at the time. The Castrol tech rep would not discuss the ZDDP issue or give any details as to the amount of ZDDP contained in their oil. After some research I determined ZR1 Valvoline was the best oil available for my flat tappet engine. And it was good but had one draw back, high detergent properties. After a little more than 1000 miles the oil starts to turn black. Remember VR1 is a racing oil made for racing. I now use Brad Penn 20W50 which I think is a very good oil for flat tappet engines. The problems I have heard of with using modern oil with very low ZDDP all happened with new or rebuild flat tappet engines in the first couple hundred miles. The last one was a 1954 Olds in less than 200 miles. The engine builder agreed to do the labor and the owner bought the parts except for the oil. The engine builder paid for that and put the Brad Penn oil in himself. Just a word of caution about ZDDP additives, how much is to much.
F. Driver

The Valvoline VR1 is not just for racing:

"Valvoline VR1 Racing Oil is formulated to increase horsepower and provide enhanced protection in race engines and other applications demanding high levels of antiwear protection, including push-rod and flat tappet style engines.

"Product Features:
High zinc/phosphorus content for antiwear protection, including in push-rod and flat tappet applications
Suitable for performance and classic passenger cars
Formulated to increase horsepower
Enhanced antifoam system helps protect engine during extreme stress
Recommended for engines burning gasoline and full or partial alcohol fuels"

Warmly,
Dave
Dave Braun

Motor oil...expensive

Engine overhaul....makes expensive motor oil look like a bargain.


You can find VR-1 on sale by the case quite often...good value.
Gene Gillam

And it says so right on the box!

That's the first I've heard that synthetics might not be good for flat tappets, though. Is there a source on that? I use Royal Purple in my vintage race midget, and RP claims it is fine. I recently did a rebuild and there was no apparent out-of-the-ordinary wear on the tappets or the cam.


David Littlefield

VR-1 isn't really racing oil. It's just a marketing scheme.
Steve Simmons

This thread was discussed between 14/04/2015 and 19/04/2015

MG TD TF 1500 index

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