Oil in the 1980's

[Doug Hillary]

Hi,
Camprunner - 20 & 30 monogrades were popular in the 1950s >

10W-30 came on the scene in the late 1950s and became very popular with US engine makers. I've mentioned many times before - 20W-50 was a special lubricant formulated for the BMC Mini of 1959. First it was Duckhams' Q20W-50 followed later by Castrol's 20W-50. In the early Minis the shared engine/gearbox arrangement caused rapid permanent shearing! The A & B Series BMC engines were very happy on SAE20 or 10W-30

 

[zeng]

Originally Posted By: BrocLuno
Motor oils range all the way up to 70 grade even today. All this talk that 20W-50 is heavy is a laugh to me. Nitro drag motors run 70 race oils to this day just to keep the bottom ends in them.
20W-50 is a bit on the thick'ish side for most motors after say 1989 or so. But before that you are looking at bigger tolerances in MFG and bigger clearances in general. Usually by only one or two thousandths, but it makes a difference.
And the VII's available back then were not what we have now. They'd shear down one grade as soon as you drove around the block

10W-30 and 10W-40 were so common they were everywhere, even the grocery store. everybody made them. Some were good, some were not ...
The smart boys building high HP street motors or marine engines for ski-boats would run straight SAE 30 and their engines would live a long time. The others were running 10W-XX and I was making a living fixing some of this stuff

If you beat on it hard enough and when it all shears down, you are left with 10 grade oil (the base stock) and a bunch of broken non-oil molecules ...


+1

Great take .

 

[Pontual]

1999 Honda Civic EX 1.6 Vtec recommended oil API SJ or newer viscosity 20w50, exclusively. Fuel recommended regular 87 aki with 25% ethanol. No additives recommended...

AH

 

[Ducked]

Originally Posted By: Camprunner
(Note I am referring to the 1080's as this is when I grew up I can't comment much on earlier time)


IIRC patchouli oil was very popular in that earlier time.

 

[Merkava_4]

Valvoline and Havoline were very popular during the 1980s.

Pennzoil and Quaker State were at the height of their sludgefest.

 

[SR5]

Australia in the 1980's, all I remember is 20W-50, with most people using GTX. Sure a few others were around like Valvoline 20W-50, and maybe some brands that don't exist anymore like Esso. But most people used GTX 20W-50, with the high performance guys using Penrite 20W-60, for that extra ten.

OK the story is a little exaggerated, and it's technically 1979, but my memory of family driving holidays in the 1980's is pretty much like the tamer scenes out of the original Mad Max movie. Consider it a documentary mixed with drunken uncle home movie exaggeration.

Except the movie never conveyed the skin searing heat of a vinyl car seat in summer, or the stench of stale tobacco mixed with Old Spice and Brut 33. The misery of trying to fall asleep with sunburn in a crusty bed full of sand.

The roads were full of carnage, less to do with outlaw biker gangs, more to do with the complete lack of understanding that drink driving was a bad thing or even illegal. When you "had a skin full" of booze, the standard technique was to put your foot down and get home sooner. Closing one eye helps too, it fixes the double vision. (Not an endorsement, just the mind set of the era).

The best thing they ever did was to crack down on drink driving. I remember driving along country roads and finding scenes like this.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: FordCapriDriver
Originally Posted By: tig1
Many engines called for 10-40 back then. However in 1978 I switched my Dodge over to M1 5-20 and the engine performed much better.

It might have worked in that engine... even though my Haynes manual says 10w40 is accepted i would never ever run 5w20 even a in a brand new rebuilt engine

A 5w-20 of those days wasn't the ILSAC 5w-20 you see today, either. My old Audi allowed for a 5w-20 in the winter, though trying to find one in North American when that vehicle was new would have been a major stretch, outside of tig1's leftovers or a boutique.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: Garak
A 5w-20 of those days wasn't the ILSAC 5w-20 you see today, either. My old Audi allowed for a 5w-20 in the winter, though trying to find one in North American when that vehicle was new would have been a major stretch, outside of tig1's leftovers or a boutique.


Garak, been there with Tig1 before.

That was in the days pre high shear viscometry, and I don't believe that the original M1 would have been in the 2.6-2.7 range, probably more like Redline's 2.9-3.0 type range with pure synthetic basestocks.

I've found a couple of period papers that compare economy with the "new" 5W20 OTC synthetic versus 10W40, with tantalisingly not enough information to prove my hypothesis.

It almost certainly wasn't ILSAC.

 

[Silk]

New Zealand service station, 1980's. Europa was a brand of oil, and 30/40 and 20/50 was your choice....and a packet of smokes to go with your house paint.

 

[SR5]

Originally Posted By: Silk
New Zealand service station, 1980's. Europa was a brand of oil, and 30/40 and 20/50 was your choice....and a packet of smokes to go with your house paint.


What's that plastic bag on the rear left wall labelled with "emergency windscreen" ?

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: SR5
Australia in the 1980's, all I remember is 20W-50, with most people using GTX. Sure a few others were around like Valvoline 20W-50, and maybe some brands that don't exist anymore like Esso. But most people used GTX 20W-50, with the high performance guys using Penrite 20W-60, for that extra ten.

OK the story is a little exaggerated, and it's technically 1979, but my memory of family driving holidays in the 1980's is pretty much like the tamer scenes out of the original Mad Max movie. Consider it a documentary mixed with drunken uncle home movie exaggeration.

Except the movie never conveyed the skin searing heat of a vinyl car seat in summer, or the stench of stale tobacco mixed with Old Spice and Brut 33. The misery of trying to fall asleep with sunburn in a crusty bed full of sand.

The roads were full of carnage, less to do with outlaw biker gangs, more to do with the complete lack of understanding that drink driving was a bad thing or even illegal. When you "had a skin full" of booze, the standard technique was to put your foot down and get home sooner. Closing one eye helps too, it fixes the double vision. (Not an endorsement, just the mind set of the era).


SR5, not only humorous, in a dark sort of way, but only marginally exaggerated.

1973, as a 6 year old, family (5 of us) descending into Adelaide in the Datto 1000 two door wagon that we moved to S.A. in...brakes gone, handbrake cable snapped, and me reefing on a pair of multigrips when Dad shrieked he wanted slow...few year later, 4 adults, three kids a wheelchair and luggage in the R16 at the "old ton" in 100F heat, brother and I lying in the hatchback area on top of the luggage.

Late 80s I worked in a Shell service station, and had my LJ with 186, triple S.U.s waggot 23/59 EH S4 grind cam...20W50 XLD and a tin of STP in the sump.

Shell service station (Manuka) had
* Shell Super SF (20W40)
* Shell XMO (15W30)...their new XHVI, was actually a monograde in hindsight.
* GTX 20W50
* AGIP synt 2000 10W50 synthetic ($10.50/litre as well)

Also common were
Castrol XL 20W40 (IIRC on that 40 part)
BP Corse 25W50
XLD 20W50

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
That was in the days pre high shear viscometry, and I don't believe that the original M1 would have been in the 2.6-2.7 range, probably more like Redline's 2.9-3.0 type range with pure synthetic basestocks.

If I had owned that Audi when new (or newish), I suspect that Red Line 5w-20 would have been about the only readily available 5w-20 choice, had I been perplexingly chasing a 5w-20 for the thing.

 

[userfriendly]

Emergency wind screens?
Maybe motorcycles face shield tear-offs? I wouldn't mind if they had those for cars 'n trucks.
Some nights I can't see for dead bugs.

 

[Silk]

Originally Posted By: SR5
What's that plastic bag on the rear left wall labelled with "emergency windscreen" ?


Tempered screens that used to shatter when a stone hit them - didn't you put your thumb on the screen when a truck was coming the other way ? Maybe it was just our cheap cars and bad roads. Anyway, you knocked the old screen out and fitted this emergency windscreen someone gave you last Xmas.

 

[chrisri]

Originally Posted By: SR5
Australia in the 1980's, all I remember is 20W-50, with most people using GTX. Sure a few others were around like Valvoline 20W-50, and maybe some brands that don't exist anymore like Esso. But most people used GTX 20W-50, with the high performance guys using Penrite 20W-60, for that extra ten.

OK the story is a little exaggerated, and it's technically 1979, but my memory of family driving holidays in the 1980's is pretty much like the tamer scenes out of the original Mad Max movie. Consider it a documentary mixed with drunken uncle home movie exaggeration.

Except the movie never conveyed the skin searing heat of a vinyl car seat in summer, or the stench of stale tobacco mixed with Old Spice and Brut 33. The misery of trying to fall asleep with sunburn in a crusty bed full of sand.

The roads were full of carnage, less to do with outlaw biker gangs, more to do with the complete lack of understanding that drink driving was a bad thing or even illegal. When you "had a skin full" of booze, the standard technique was to put your foot down and get home sooner. Closing one eye helps too, it fixes the double vision. (Not an endorsement, just the mind set of the era).

The best thing they ever did was to crack down on drink driving. I remember driving along country roads and finding scenes like this.

Haha, 80s and going on a vacation with parents.. That thing must be globally universal. I remember my dad's R8, Skoda 120. That smell of vinyl, burnt oil, petrol, and offcourse Brut.

 

[A_Harman]

Dad always had a case of Sohio Multron 10w40 for the family cars when I was growing up in the 1970's, so I was programmed to think of 10w40 as the grade of choice. My brother and I put a 327 small block in a Vega in 1978 and used Cam2 20w50 in it because we thought we had a race engine.

I ran waste 10w40 Multron the first summer I had the '75 Vega go-to-college car. I carried around a gallon of it and put in a quart every week. Then dad and I rebuilt the engine and consumption improved to a quart per 1000 miles. I did a couple of years with Arco Graphite 10w40 to finish up college.

Then I got the '75 Cosworth Vega and put Valvoline Turbo V 10w30 in it.

Same with the '85 Pontiac Sunbird Turbo when it was new, then I switched to M1 5w30 around 1987 until I traded it in 1999.

And what did I run in my 1976 Vega and 1978 Buick Skyhawk beater cars? Can't remember. The Skyhawk was noteworthy because it was the only late-70's Buick 3.8L V6 I ever heard that didn't have timing chain slap.

 

[fdcg27]

I had similar experiences back in the seventies.
The family long-hauler was typically a big, newish SBC Chevy four door or wagon. The sedans had utterly cavernous trunks even with a regular tire as a spare.
These were very roomy, quiet and soft riding cars.
They weren't all that fast by current standards and weren't especially economical at 15 mpg or so, but with gas at fifty cents a gallon or so in 1975, who cared?
The big change was the arrival of radial tires as standard in 1975 along with a rear anti-roll bar. Handling was utterly transformed and only got better with the downsized B-bodies with the F-41 suspension box checked on the order form. These were truly the days when GM ruled the American road and actually sold as many units as Ford, Chrysler and the then many imported vehicles combined.
These cars would have gotten 10W-30 at the time and had no trouble with winter starts on what's now called the North Coast (Cleveland and surrounding area, a region of about two million souls).

 

[fdcg27]

You had a Cosworth Vega?
I am truly jealous. Although not fast by current standards, it was quick car in its day and handled really well on smooth roads just like any other Vega on what where then considered wide tires and with a rear anti-roll bar.
The black with gold stripes JPS-look car always seemed really attractive.

 

[WobblyElvis]

I had a 1979 Chev Malibu 305. The owners manual called for 5W30. That's all I ever put in it.

 

[SatinSilver]

Originally Posted By: fdcg27
You had a Cosworth Vega? I am truly jealous.


You must be one boring guy.