In a message dated 12/10/00 9:30:09 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
owner-mgs-digest@autox.team.net writes:
> Had a call from one of our readers today, who was inquiring if I knew where
> (if)
> Castrol R could still be purchased (in North America, that is)? Aside
from
> hearing folks wax rhapsodic about the memories of going to races in ze olt
> dayz, as BS would say, and smelling the burnt castor oil, I don't know
much
> about it. Any current info, anyone?
R, which is a castor bean based oil, is available sporadically. It comes in
40 wt., and is about $12 Can. a quart. Castrol is independently represented
in Canada, the US, and the UK, so finding out such things, and finding
someone that wants to be bothered tracking down some for a small order can be
difficult.
Frankly, the modern synthetic oils are as good or better.
In the Good Old Days, we did tests - I saw one local team that raced 1275
Spridgets, and used R in one engine and regular Castrol HD 40 in the other.
The useful life of an engine in those days, run the way they ran them, was
about 4 hours, before you needed to change at least the rod shells, or about
3 race weekends.
These guys tore down both engines after the same number of hours. The regular
oiled engine was showing bearing wear, as expected, and needed to be
'freshened'. The Castrol R engine looked almost like new, and the bearings
would have probably lasted another 6-8 hours. Interesting, no?
Bill S.
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