Hello,
I am new to this website. Forgive me if I ask questions that have already been covered. I have a 1964 Shelby Ford AC Cobra. My questions will be relative to this old car that I have owned for more than twenty years now.
Engine Oil
Situation: I am told my car always used Pennzoil® H30 oil in the crankcase prior to my purchase and I used it up until 1998. In 1998 I changed to Mobil 1®. Did I mess up?
Several years ago I had the opportunity to make an in depth inspection of the engine after the cooling fan quit in Tulsa rush hour traffic, three valve guides scored when I boiled a gallon plus of coolant mixture out. With the exception of the valve stem guides right next to the exhaust gas cross-over getting cooked the engine was in fine condition at nearly 50,000 miles. Everything was still standard except for 0.00025” taper in one cylinder. There was still phosphate coating on all the complete surfaces of the cam lobes. This is a solid lifter engine and it did have some road and drag track time on it. It will run up to roughly 7,500 rpm although power falls off slightly above about 6,700 rpm. In 1998 I changed to Mobil 1 in an effort to cut engine (oil and water) temperature. Lately I have had people tell me that Mobil 1 will hasten the failure of solid lifters and cam shafts. I have been told the Mobil 1 “used by NASCAR®” is not exactly like what civilians buy at Wal-Mart®, the claim is the “NASCAR version” gets some zinc and phosphorous organometallic compounds as additives to prevent among other things cam and lifter failure. Am I destroying my original 1964 engine with Mobil 1 now?
Axle/Wheel Bearing Grease
Situation: I have used Shell Darina® AX general purpose grease in all manner of devices since the late 1960s. The list includes but is not limited to everything from Model A Ford water pumps to front wheel bearings in Shelby and Boss Mustangs run hard. I have used it in my Cobra, including road racing application, since 1984. The disk brake rotors on the Cobra get really got, enough to change color occasionally, on a road race course. This means the hubs and bearings get extra ordinary heat and abuse. I have never had any problem with Darina AX even though Shell only rated it to 150°F. I started using it because a local racer in the employment of Ford Motor Company in the late 1960s used it in his Ford paid for and sponsored car. It is a non-soap material with no dropping point within reported ASTM testing. It is not water soluble as far as I can tell and has excellent rust protection ability. Although if seems to have quite a bit of oil separation it has long service life. My own experience is it will start to char before it melts if it gets really hot and by that time the elastomer in the seals decompose too. It is now obsolete apparently as my local Shell distributor could find nothing but a Darina AX2 listed. What little I could find on this material doesn’t show it rated for NLGI GC-LB service.
Problem: Replace an old friend with some current product. There are many makers/marketers of NLGI rated grease advertised for wheel bearings. They all claim there materials are at least excellent and some claim to be the best. I go on the theory that 99.9% of all goods and services have only one true design or purpose and that is to separate the buyer from his money. I am a born skeptic. I have made a spreadsheet of reported test data and miscellaneous information on a small selection of brands and products. Easy to get to data is scare. I realize that reported test results must be taken with a few grains of salt (that 99.9% theory) but they are a place to start. The information I can not find concerns, do they work? Based on advertisements and data you would think that Amsoil® and Redline® racing greases make everything else obsolete, of course Timken® thinks their material is best when overall tribology is considered.
Question: Does anybody have any real life experience to share with these technowonder greases? If is a lot of trouble to break down the rear hub carriers, clean everything, and put it back together on a Cobra. I only want to do it once to change grease types. Based solely on manufacturer website information I have narrowed the list down to Amsoil Series 2000, Redline CV-2, and Mobil 1. I want grease that work well in my application (including the occasional track use) and be commercially available for years. Comments?
Dan Case
I am new to this website. Forgive me if I ask questions that have already been covered. I have a 1964 Shelby Ford AC Cobra. My questions will be relative to this old car that I have owned for more than twenty years now.
Engine Oil
Situation: I am told my car always used Pennzoil® H30 oil in the crankcase prior to my purchase and I used it up until 1998. In 1998 I changed to Mobil 1®. Did I mess up?
Several years ago I had the opportunity to make an in depth inspection of the engine after the cooling fan quit in Tulsa rush hour traffic, three valve guides scored when I boiled a gallon plus of coolant mixture out. With the exception of the valve stem guides right next to the exhaust gas cross-over getting cooked the engine was in fine condition at nearly 50,000 miles. Everything was still standard except for 0.00025” taper in one cylinder. There was still phosphate coating on all the complete surfaces of the cam lobes. This is a solid lifter engine and it did have some road and drag track time on it. It will run up to roughly 7,500 rpm although power falls off slightly above about 6,700 rpm. In 1998 I changed to Mobil 1 in an effort to cut engine (oil and water) temperature. Lately I have had people tell me that Mobil 1 will hasten the failure of solid lifters and cam shafts. I have been told the Mobil 1 “used by NASCAR®” is not exactly like what civilians buy at Wal-Mart®, the claim is the “NASCAR version” gets some zinc and phosphorous organometallic compounds as additives to prevent among other things cam and lifter failure. Am I destroying my original 1964 engine with Mobil 1 now?
Axle/Wheel Bearing Grease
Situation: I have used Shell Darina® AX general purpose grease in all manner of devices since the late 1960s. The list includes but is not limited to everything from Model A Ford water pumps to front wheel bearings in Shelby and Boss Mustangs run hard. I have used it in my Cobra, including road racing application, since 1984. The disk brake rotors on the Cobra get really got, enough to change color occasionally, on a road race course. This means the hubs and bearings get extra ordinary heat and abuse. I have never had any problem with Darina AX even though Shell only rated it to 150°F. I started using it because a local racer in the employment of Ford Motor Company in the late 1960s used it in his Ford paid for and sponsored car. It is a non-soap material with no dropping point within reported ASTM testing. It is not water soluble as far as I can tell and has excellent rust protection ability. Although if seems to have quite a bit of oil separation it has long service life. My own experience is it will start to char before it melts if it gets really hot and by that time the elastomer in the seals decompose too. It is now obsolete apparently as my local Shell distributor could find nothing but a Darina AX2 listed. What little I could find on this material doesn’t show it rated for NLGI GC-LB service.
Problem: Replace an old friend with some current product. There are many makers/marketers of NLGI rated grease advertised for wheel bearings. They all claim there materials are at least excellent and some claim to be the best. I go on the theory that 99.9% of all goods and services have only one true design or purpose and that is to separate the buyer from his money. I am a born skeptic. I have made a spreadsheet of reported test data and miscellaneous information on a small selection of brands and products. Easy to get to data is scare. I realize that reported test results must be taken with a few grains of salt (that 99.9% theory) but they are a place to start. The information I can not find concerns, do they work? Based on advertisements and data you would think that Amsoil® and Redline® racing greases make everything else obsolete, of course Timken® thinks their material is best when overall tribology is considered.
Question: Does anybody have any real life experience to share with these technowonder greases? If is a lot of trouble to break down the rear hub carriers, clean everything, and put it back together on a Cobra. I only want to do it once to change grease types. Based solely on manufacturer website information I have narrowed the list down to Amsoil Series 2000, Redline CV-2, and Mobil 1. I want grease that work well in my application (including the occasional track use) and be commercially available for years. Comments?
Dan Case
