Larry,
I just switched to Valvoline full synthetic 20W50; bought it at PEP Boys.
First, I flushed the engine for 20 minutes using a pint of Gunk Flush,
drained, put in cheap oil, ran it for about 200 miles, flushed again,
drained, added the synthetic. Idle rpm went up a couple hundred so I
adjusted back below 1000 rpm. Oil pressure at idle is up from about 17 to
25 psi. It's actually getting better, and is now up to about 28 psi at
idle, hot. Oil leaks have not increased.
Theory: The engine had gunk build up. The double-flush got rid of it, so
oil pressure went up. It is continuing to rise because the synthetic is
continuing to clean out gunk.
Conclusion: Go 20w50 synthetic as a first step in getting pressure back up.
This is not a magic bullet, it won't fix something that's really broken,
but it pressure is pressure, lubrication is lubrication.
YMMV,
Jeff
At 10:08 AM -0400 4/19/99, Larry Macy wrote:
> I know this was discussed a while back, but I fianlly got around to
> changing the oil in the Midget on Sunday (it was eiter that or play golf
> and since I need to drive the Midget - it won).
> I put Castrol 5-50 Syntec in. The oil pressure seems to be fine, or even
> a little higher than before.
> I was a dedicated Valvoline user (20W-50) cuz it always gave me a better
> oil pressure than the Castrol.
> The only Valvoline synthetic I could find was 10W-30 and with summer
> coming on I felt that wasn't enough, esp since the Midget runs a little
> hotter than before with the electric fan instead of the water pump fan.
>
> I'll give a road report after the Philly MG vs TR Rally on the 25th.
>
> Larry
>
> Larry Macy
> 78 Midget
>
> Keep your top down and your chin up
Jeff Boatright '65 Sprite MkIII __o_\__
http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~jboatri/
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