Oil in the 1980's

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It seems many oil companies were big on pushing heavy oils in the 1980's 10w40 and 20w50 weight oils were much more commonplace as a matter of fact my Honda Civic ran Castrol GTX 20w50 in the summer and 10w40 in the winter. Were lighter weight viscosity oils not up to the task back in the 1980's it seems 5w30 and 10w30 oils were not recommended as much? .. (Note I am referring to the 1080's as this is when I grew up I can't comment much on earlier time)
 
10 w 30 was a common listing back then, but often the vehicle came with a chart showing different grades for different temp ranges. My son's "restoration" 633CSI, an 83, shows 20 w 50 as the best overall grade for the New England climate range. Big starter motor on that car.
 
I recall my Chevy V6 S10 truck rec'd 5w/10w30. Tied that introductory 20 grade Mobil_1 and the car balked - no likey. I stupidly ran 20w50 Castrol in my Fiat 3P in the Fall of one year, since I thought it was "racy" oil but It didn't seem do anything for the engine except make it slower revving and almost not start in the cold weather that came suddenly.
I don't think your Honda recommended 10w40 as optimal, though it may have allowed it on a chart in the O.M. above 0-Deg C. You won't see oil companies "pushing" grades not required by manufacturers.
Most all PC engines spec 30 or 20 grade, just a handful of SHP gasoline engine spec'ing higher grades and special certs.
 
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Most cars went from 10w-40 to 10W-30.

10w-30 probably the most common viscosity back in early to late 80's.

I ran 10w-30 turbo Amsoil in all my cars back then, good stuff!
 
I ran 5-50 Castrol synthetic in everything but 2 cycles in the 80's.

In the 70's I ran 10-40 Q-State in everything.

At the time I lived in Northern Illinois.
 
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
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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
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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 ...
 
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.
 
My 1986 Daihatsu says 10W30, but I've moved on.

15W40 or straight 40 is what it gets these days.
 
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
 
back in 1986 when i was still in the army stationed at ft. polk louisiana. i purchased a new 86 mercury lynx. (escort twin sister) any way, that motor called for 5w30 and eeeeeh i was still the heavier oil the better oil minded person back then. i used 10W40 pennzoil yellow or castrol gtx and always got great gas millage and power. never had any trouble running that heavier oil in it. an still got 41mpg hwy coming home to pa on leave. (figured manually) not car computer.
 
I was done with 10w40 shortly after GM dis-recommended it in the 70s. Chrysler followed suit pretty quickly, and 10w30 was the norm in all my vehicles from the 80s through the early 2000s, when 5w30 and 0w40 became viable options (the latter for the old cars).

My one attempt at using 20w50 for an oil burner was not good- it burned oil faster (weak rings couldn't scrape the thicker oil as well as 10w30 perhaps?), fouled plugs, and pinged like crazy. Went back to 10w30 and ran that thing another 50k miles at least until it got to "check the gas and fill up with oil" extremes :-/
 
I ran 10W-40 in my 79 Cutlas Salon V8 5sp manual through the 1980s. Arco Graphite was the trick oil then....went in black & came out black.
 
As the 1980s began I was driving my first car, the '75 Ford Maverick 4-door with the 250CI six. As I recall I used Quaker State 10W-40 in it.

My next car was the '65 Mercury Park Lane with the big T-Bird engine. I think I used 10W-40 also, though that might have been habit -- I never had the manual for the car, so I didn't know what was recommended.

My final car of that decade was the '84 Ford Escort with the miniscule 1.6L engine. I wasn't able to change the oil on that one myself, so I took it to a number of different shops. Pretty sure I chose 10W-30. So yes, I'd think the thicker oils were recommended then, or my fellow drivers recommended them based on their experiences.
 
In the 70's and 80's I owned a lot of VW bus's and always ran Castrol 20w-50. I have no idea if anything else would have been better. I also ran the same 20w-50 in my stock 79 Scirocco for 200K miles before I sold it.

For my flathead fords and small block Chevy's I ran Delo 15w-40 in everything. I purchased it in 5 gallon buckets from the tractor and truck repair guys in my area. These were street performance, boats, dune buggy and drag strip applications. Again, I have no idea if some other oil would have been better. This was in the days when you had to build stuff yourself and do all your own work.
 
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


Nobody askin you to. It did work for me.
 
Originally Posted By: Camprunner
It seems many oil companies were big on pushing heavy oils in the 1980's 10w40 and 20w50 weight oils were much more commonplace as a matter of fact my Honda Civic ran Castrol GTX 20w50 in the summer and 10w40 in the winter. Were lighter weight viscosity oils not up to the task back in the 1980's it seems 5w30 and 10w30 oils were not recommended as much? .. (Note I am referring to the 1080's as this is when I grew up I can't comment much on earlier time)
There wasn't the huge push for the CAFE standards pushed by the epas ability to make laws.
 
I used at least a 10W-40 in everything up until we bought our new Aerostar in 1997. It called for a 5W-30 on 5K drains. I figured that Ford knew what they were smoking, so I gave it M1 0W-30. Same for the '99 Accord we bought a couple of years later.
I used to think that thicker was better. I then let go of that fallacy. I'm now starting to think that thinner isn't always better either.
I just want an engine to last 200K+ and deliver decent fuel economy.
The most economical car we ever owned was an '86 Civic Wagon. That sucker would deliver 40 mpg+ on my commute and never saw anything thinner than a 10W-40.
To respond to the OP, in the eighties, 10W-40 was my grade of choice, although by then most OEMs recommended the 10W-30 grade, with GM dramatically recommending 5W-30 for many applications.
 
SAE HD 30 straight weight in everything plus a can of STP in deep South Texas year round in the 80's for me. Typically Pennzoil, Quaker State, or Havoline - whichever was the best deal.
 
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