tr7triumph.com

Last year i used Halfords 20w50 and i felt the engine could do with sounding a little smoother. I bought some Molyslip and after about 100 miles i noticed a massive difference, i was very impressed.

The time's come for the 7's annual oil change and rather than brave the Fri afternoon traffic i went to my local car spares place and bought a gallon of Comma Classic 20w50, Fram oil filter and a tin of Wynn's oil treatment because they didn't have any Molyslip. After doing a bit of reading up i found that there was different types, PTFE (which apparently blocks the oil filter) Petrolium based (which doesn't sound like a good idea at all) and detergent based (which i don't need because my engines internals are spotless) The question is What have i bought and is it any good? I did read a thread with some very informative posts from Hasbeen regarding STP, but no info on Wynn's.

Thanks.

I stay away from anything with Teflon.....It may coat the walls and act like a "slippery" surface or an "added level of protection" or whatever they want to claim. Fact is over time, the coating will craze and eventually break down and may cause problems....many lawsuits were brought against Slick 50 awhile back if I remember.....I just stick with oil.

I stick with just oil as well Rob,

I tend to get my oil from asda as the prices are cheaper then the motor factors, i normally flush out my old oil but leave the filter on.

Then i will run through some of asda's own classic 20w50 at a staggering £5 a gallon [:)], then its out with the cheap oil off with the old filter, new filter and a gallon of castrols finest magnatec.[:)]

I normally do this twice a year when she comes off the road then just before she goes back on, try not to use any addetives if i can.

Have a read of this Rob;

http://www.epinions.com/content_2969477252




1980 2.0 16v DHC - Polly.

I'm not a fan of any oil additives either: I just use a good quality synthetic. Avoid anything that claims to contain Teflon or PTFE, it's not a good idea and is not recommended by DuPont (IIRC they sued a few companies over the use of the Teflon trademark in engine additives as DuPont didn't want to be associated with that use of the product).

The one thing I'm careful of with flat tappet engines (as in the TR7 and my Alfas) is to buy something with sufficient levels of zinc anti-wear additives: there are conflicting reports about whether the reduced levels of zinc in recent SM and SN grade motor oils are acceptable for older engines. In the US, Mobil1 15W50 has 1200ppm zinc and is readily available.

Personally I avoid Fram filters like the plague as well, and if you look at some cut apart oil filters you'll see why. Fram uses cardboard end caps (everyone else I know of uses metal) and they're notorious for having leaky anti drainback valves. See link below.

http://people.msoe.edu/~yoderw/oilfilte ... study.html

-----
Tom
'79 TR7
'87 Alfa 75
'91 Alfa Spider

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Century Gothic, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Gubi</i>

... they're notorious for having leaky anti drainback valves ...<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Luckily that doesn't matter much on a TR7 engine [;)]

<center>
<font color="blue"><i>1980 TR7 DHC (my first car, now restored and back on the road)
1981 TR7 FHC Sprint (better known as 't Kreng)</font id="blue">
<b>[url="http://www.tr7beans.blogspot.com/"]<u><b><font size="2"><font color="red">My Weblog</font id="red"></font id="size2"></b></u>[/url]</b></i></center>

I use Castrol 20-50 and plus zinc additive in both of my Triumphs and my MG. I know some people argue it isn't necessary, but it's pretty cheap insurance. I wonder if I should be adding zinc to my Jeeps...

Ken
Anchorage, Alaska

1980 TR8, 1973 TR6, 1965 Volvo PV544, 1958 MGA, Jeep Cherokees

Thanks guys, i shall leave it out. Re the Fram oil filter, are you referring to the paper type filter? i have the spin on conversion and the filter appears to have white plastic end caps sealed with a metal "top" as i shine my mobile phone torch inside it. I have used Fram before and haven't had any probs.

It does seem that there's no proof if these additives any good or not then, not that i can find anyway!

Stan, that's the website which made me think twice about this additive. The fact the site is called "Epinions" made me question anything written there. Would companies really still produce something which is known to damage engines? There's shockingly little info on this Wynn's product, it tells you what it's supposed to do but not what it contains. If it was a pie i'd not be eating it!

Thanks again Chaps,

Rob.

Don't know if my two penn'orth will be any use but i'll throw it in anyway!

I'm guessing the additive in question here is Wynns For Oil? Basically it's a viscosity maintainer/improver and contains a compound which helps to reduce sticking piston rings, valves etc. While i've only ever used it once personally and did not notice any effects at all, something i do use a lot is Wynns Engine Flush when i change my oil. I've tried others and the only ones that compete IMHO are Commas engine flush (again about 300ml of flushing agent) and the Carlube offering. Again with the engine oil, i use Carlube 10W40 or 15W40 in my engines and find it does a very good job, staying pretty clean between changes.

As for the frequency of oil changes, i do mine every 6 months regardless of mileage. If i've done more than 6,000 miles in the 6 months then it gets done at the 6,000 mile interval instead. As i know from my time running landfill gas powered electricity generators, oil only has a certain life and at best it's about 6 months for the sort of oil that is recommended for something like a TR7 (ie 20W50, 15W40 mineral oil). Obviously with something like Mobil 1, Castrol Magnatec etc, these are partially or fully synthetic in a lot of cases which gives them a longer life and to be honest aren't really suitable for the Wedge lump as they are designed for modern engines that don't need things like the extra zinc etc found in mineral oils so in some ways could be counter productive!

As for adding something like Molyslip, there's always pro's and con's to this idea. However my line of thought is that a thin layer of molybdenum sulphate is no substitute for a properly serviced and lubricated engine and if the engine is properly serviced and lubricated, it shouldn't need any sort of additive like Molyslip.

On similar lines, additives that are designed to revitalise oil seals are at best a temporary fix but can be useful sometimes, especially if an overhaul is planned but for whatever reason needs to be put off for a short while.

Cheers,
Dave

Dave, your two penn'orth is always welcome! This additive is Wynn's super charge oil treatment which "reduces oil consumption and reduces noise and wear" Apparently! All my cars are serviced either on or before the service intervals but i do like to give em the best!

Cheers,

Rob.

Is Penrite Oil available in the UK? They have grades suitable for older engines, and list the Zinc content etc. In a TR7 or Sprint, there is no cam noise on startup that you can get with some oils.
http://www.penriteoil.com.au/


TR7 Convertible
Sprint Motor
MegaSquirt EFI

yes it's available here, i should of gone for the 20w60 but it's awfully expensive and it seems that the 20w50 is doing the job. i didn't get camshaft noise but occasionally i'd get the top end "ticking" which would last for about 5 - 10 secs and go away for a few minutes. this would happen more when it was hot. Since i added the moly slip the noise has gone away completely.

I have been using modern 20W50 oil (Valvoline VR1 racing) since 2003 without any problems.

And both engines were treated with Slick 50 after their running in (DHC in 1995 and Sprint in 1997).
Made a noticeable (positive) difference on the engines running.
Both engines are still going strong till date.

... my 2 cents

<center>
<font color="blue"><i>1980 TR7 DHC (my first car, now restored and back on the road)
1981 TR7 FHC Sprint (better known as 't Kreng)</font id="blue">
<b>[url="http://www.tr7beans.blogspot.com/"]<u><b><font size="2"><font color="red">My Weblog</font id="red"></font id="size2"></b></u>[/url]</b></i></center>

Engines with steel cams don't need zinc. These are found in "modern" engines. Engines with overhead cams have steel cams. That includes our wedge and OHC engines in Jags as well. Our engine (4 Cylinder) is considered a "modern" engine. I've never used additives and have changed oil (whatever brand name was on sale and Castrol 20W50 GTX in the TR7) and filter every three months as per manufacturers recommendations over the last 40 years. Never had an engine burn oil or need an overhaul. Mind you the highest mileage I've had was 180,000 miles (to date). Now that I don't use my cars on a daily basis, only drive my Integra(A/C) in summer and Toyota(4WD) in winter I change oil and filter once a year in all cars. If you drive your car on a daily basis you should change every six months, more often if you do high mileage (over 12,000 miles per year).

Fram have the worst oil filters according to independent tests. WIX, Purolator have the best.

Beans is right, you don't need a valve in a downfacing bottom filter like the TR7, only on cars using side mounted filters.



TR7 Spider - 1978 Spitfire - 1976 Spitfire - 1988 Tercel 4X4 - Kali on Integra - 1991 Integra - Yellow TCT

Don't forget a sizeable amout of our wedges have proper engines: RV8's
- and they definitely need the zinc and phosphorous additives in high doses.
Or you'll shorten the camshaft/hydr. lifter life considerably.

Sorry fellers, if you think you are not running additives in your oil, you're kidding yourself. It's just a question of who put them there. One large oil company chemist once told me that their oil was about 85% the stuff out of the ground, plus 15% additives to make it work better.

The main reason the oil companies don't want us to add additives ourselves is the possibility of a reaction between those they have in there & what we may add.

I've mentioned before that I could not keep big end bearings in my Morgan's Triumph TR3A engine being spun to 6000, without STP in the oil. I think I've also mentioned that the BP Course racing oil, of the day, [early 60s], felt & smelt just like oil with STP in it.

STP is merely ionised oil. By a patented process they bombarded oil with a gamma ray, which broke down the oil molecule into a much smaller molecule, which added an electrical charge to it in the process.

This made it surface seeking, [sticky] so it won't drain out, & has a higher pressure resistant boundary lubrication film.

It is interesting that Magnatec appeared just after the STP patent expired, & has that smell & feel.

When I was running big stuff we never changed the oil. We had centrifugal oil filters which spun out all the solid contaminates, metal & combustion products, & 2 different type of heating elements. These heaters removed any fuel that had got into the oil, & cooked out condensation & other products of combustion.

This oil was always clean.

We then sent a sample of each engines oil to the oil company once a month. They would send us replacement additives for those used up in the month. This usually ran at about 3 to 4 gallons of stuff for a 100 gallon capacity, [mostly detergents I believe] to replace those expended.

My son was, up to recently, responsible for running this process on his navy ship. They only replaced the 1,000 gallons of oil in each engines oil tank when they got hundreds of gallons of salt water into a tank, which would have taken days to remove with the gear on board.

Having said all that, I agree with Stag. Penrite have done the formulations to supply us with oil suitable for our cars. Their oil is dear, because you get what you pay for, & the best additives are dear.

I have been using their HPR 40 for 10 years, & over 60,000Km in my FHC. I change it every 6 months, or 3,000Km, with the filter, because I believe oil is cheep compared to rebuilds. I do second guess them & add my trusty STP. With my track experience of the stuff, I just can't help myself, even if I know I don't really need it.

Hasbeen