Late 80s/early 90s oil tech

[BrocLuno]

Well I started building cars with flat-head V8's ... So I been at this a while. Back in the day, we ran SAE30HD in a LOT of engines. But, by the 1980's the multi-vis oils had sort of sorted themselves out ...

Phillips Trop-Artic was very popular. Sta-Lube was well regarded. Phillips Racing and Kendall Racing oils were in hot engines. I stayed with SAE30 in serious engines, but put 10W30 Chevron Supreme in a lot of normal street engines. That was sort of the default grade for anything that was not an oil burner. If it was marginal on oil consumption, it got Castrol GTX 20W50 (and if it needed it, a bottle of PIB ...).

Guys were blowing up big Old's engines in jet boats turning them to high and catching some air under the boat which would unload the jet drive - bang no motor. When I started building those engines, they all went on SAE30 and we loaded them down hard enough that that most would not pull over 5,500. They stayed together pretty well

If they had aluminum rods, they got straight SAE50 racing oil as the rods would gall on anything thinner (where they rub together side by side).

Point being that oils back then were selected for the task at hand, just like they are today. Not all that much has changed ... But we have better oils, better synthetic blends, more choices and thinner oils that will hold up to modern power density for many thousands of miles.

But if the application calls for thicker oil for some reason like bearing clearances, you still have to go there, or start buying parts ...

 

[Pepsibottle1]

The insight provided in this thread is amazing. Love hearing the stories & opinions.

 

[Silk]

I wasn't interested in synthetics at all when they first appeared, too expensive for not much advantage. But when XR Hondas started to get cronic cam and rocker wear, we started using a Shell synthetic motorcycle oil. I haven't seen a flogged out XR top end for decades, so it was probably the oil of the period not being up to the job.

 

[FCD]

My car was serviced by the Ford dealer up until the mid 90s, which means it only say bulk group 1 dino 20w50 oils for 20 years being used daily, with a few experiments with Mobil 1 inbetween, and after that mostly Castrol GTX and Valvoline, and for the last 10 years Mobil 2000 Syn Blend 10w40, with few oil changes ( ever 2 or 3 years ), it has over 150k miles now ( 304k on the car ), which in the 70s would have been considered a lot!, most cars were clunkers that burned oil by then, my car has been family owned since new so i know everything that's happened to it.

 

[jongies3]

Originally Posted By: Pepsibottle1
Originally Posted By: tig1
Originally Posted By: Pepsibottle1
Originally Posted By: tig1
I started using M1 5-20 in 1978 because of the superior cold start benefits. and extended OCIs to 10K. About the only other synthetic option then was Amsoil, but it was hard to find. Penz and QS conventional oils were well known for sludging engines. Valvo was a fairly good dino oil per my experience.


10k intervals even back then? Wow!

That was the only wt M1 had then. I used it in engines calling for 10-40. I have used M1 ever since. First vehicle I used it in was a 78 Dodge truck. The engine performed great, but used a little more oil.


Out of curiosity why did it use a bit more oil, simply because of the lower viscosity? That's really good to know. I didn't know M1 5w20 was that versatile

Also suprised to hear about the Pennzoil sludging. My grandmother absolutely swore by Pennz Yellow and put it in everything she ran for whatever reason.

The Pennzoil and QS thing was still a myth back then. The only time Pennz ever had sludge issues was around the 50's when they used too much paraffin wax in the oil. Not on purpose, but because nobody knew what to do with it and were oblivious to the idea of it causing harm (back then, a 3000 mile oil change was a huge stretch even, you changed your oil more like a max of 1500 miles). Then the big scented wax candle companies started popping up all over the country. Ever buy a birthday candle or any basic type candle for that matter? Pay attention to the prices on them, and you'll understand why, just put 2 and 2 together. Those candle companies pay the refining companies to separate the paraffin wax from the crude oil so they can turn it into candles. (And whatever other companies use paraffin for, there's uses for it in beauty products for the ladies for skin products and such, it just really took off with the scented candle companies.)
Either way, the sludge issues were caused simply by negligent owners who didn't keep up on maintenance and instead of finding what the actual problem was, they just took the quickest route and blamed the motor oil, a lot of car engines in the 80's had notorious head gasket issues, which is a huge cater for sludge. Since Pennzoil had that old reputation from back in the day that hasn't quite gone away, and likely never will. I still find myself shaking my head at the ignorance surrounding this topic today with a handful of my customers, both my age and younger. Believe me, if Pennzoil was as bad as people "claim", they'd have gone under years ago. Oil companies with weak quality control, and lazy marketing tactics didn't survive very long. There's a bunch of dead oil companies from the past if you dig around a bit, probably longer than the list of all the old independent automakers that used to exist in the U.S. .

There, I'm stepping off my soapbox now. Wasn't trying to defend Pennzoil just because I use it, I'm just trying my best to clear the facts. I graduated high school in the early 80's and from my first car all the way up until the early 2000's I ran whatever cheap, bargain store oil and filter I could find on my cars. (Synthetic oil wasn't even an forethought in my mind then, I just thought the stuff was a scam and a waste of money!) But I never once had an issue related to sludge, filter failure, or anything like that. I just tried my best to have it changed every 3k, and sometimes paid a few visits to the dreaded 'Iffy Lube shops, things that I cringe thinking about looking back today! If memory serves me right, 'Iffy Lubes started popping up all over the country midway through my high school years, that's when those fast lube chains really took off and became big multimillion dollar businesses. When I was a young kid, I have no recollection of such things, you either did it yourself or the service department at the dealership was where you went. Things are a lot different now, holy cow! Really catches a guy off guard when he stops and thinks about it.

 

[pbm]

When I started driving in the early seventies oil came in those cardboard cans. Castrol GTX was
considered top shelf and I even used the 20w50 in my new 1977 Yamaha 650.
I used many other oils like Valvoline, QS, Pennzoil, Wolf's Head, Esso Unilube, and even Sears Spectrum. I usually used 10w40 but sometimes 10w30 and I remember when 5w30 started appearing in the mid 80's thinking it was too thin.

I also believe the QS and Pennzoil 'wax' issue was from long before the late 80's...

PS: There was a very good synthetic called Amoco Ultimate available at K Mart in the early 90's....I still have some..

 

[Solarent]

Originally Posted By: tig1
Originally Posted By: Pepsibottle1
Originally Posted By: c502cid
Because I was a kid growing up in So Cal, I took the advice of my gearhead neighbor and ran only Valvoline Racing straight 30 or 40 weight with a can of STP on top of it! I only owned V8's at the time with the exception of one Triumph Spitfire motor. My step dad used that fancy Arco Graphite.


Wait a second, what is this graphite you speak of? My youth is really showing.


True. Arco had graphite in it.


Interesting factoid - Lubrizol was originally called Lubri-graph and their first product was a graphited lubricant and applicator. Although that was back in the 30's.

When you think back to the late 80/early 90's period you can understand why additives like STP were so proliferate. Engine oil then wasn't nearly as complex as it was today. Additive package makers as we know them today (the big 4) were really just starting to form and the API was upgrading from SF to SG and ILSAC grades (GF-1) with the "For Gasoline Engines" Starburst wasn't even invented yet. Smaller companies like STP, Lucas, MMO, and others were all out proving the benefits of their products and used what we now consider rudimentary tribology tests (like the Falex or a modified Timkin Bearing test) to prove to people that they reduced friction and improved oil protection - which at the time they probably did.

Fast forward to today. We have 4 major companies supplying performance additives to the bulk of the world's engine oil supplies - things that were considered "boutique additives" are now mainstream and engine oils are a highly engineered soup of chemicals. What happened to those little companies - they kept up with the same marketing claims, the same basic products and using the same rudimentary tribology tests (no widely called the one-armed bandit). Its a great example of how if you don't update with the times in your product development and marketing efforts... your industry will pass you by with you standing still. In the information age, this pace is even faster so you have to innovate, you have to invest in your brand otherwise you become irrelevant.

If you were to go back 25 years and look at the list of major oil companies of the day - most of them have either been acquired (like Texaco) merged (like Exxon and Mobil or Shell/Pennzoil/QS) or are no longer in business. And the remaining few who did survive now control close to 60% of the market.

 

[tig1]

In 1965 I bought a 64 Plymouth Valiant slant 6 with 13000K. I used QS and changed oil every 2K.
At 50K I pulled the valve cover to adjust the tappets(solid lifters). Sludge was so bad I had to scoop it out. I then changed to Valvoline and never had that problem again. Penz and QS was well known at that time for sludgeing problems. With that said, both companies improved their oils, and produce a fine product today.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

My father had a few cases of Mobil1 10w-30 in the garage. I used it when I bought the Cherokee. Think it was 5w-30 grade. Was from the 90s based on the API spec.

Does anyone remember "Truck and Van" oil?

 

[lexus114]

Originally Posted By: eljefino


This ad sold my Dad (and myself, independently.) Castrol 10w40 in the 200-6 Fairmont and the Dodge 024 Miser.

PS, "Protection against Viscosity"... sweet.


that ad never gets old! hahaha

 

[Anduril]

I didn't drive back then, but my dad used Castrol GTX. Now he makes too much money to do his own maintenance, and takes everything to the dealer.

 

[tig1]

Originally Posted By: Miller88
My father had a few cases of Mobil1 10w-30 in the garage. I used it when I bought the Cherokee. Think it was 5w-30 grade. Was from the 90s based on the API spec.

Does anyone remember "Truck and Van" oil?


I remember the Truck and Van M1.

 

[Bandita]

Originally Posted By: tig1
Originally Posted By: Miller88
My father had a few cases of Mobil1 10w-30 in the garage. I used it when I bought the Cherokee. Think it was 5w-30 grade. Was from the 90s based on the API spec.

Does anyone remember "Truck and Van" oil?


I remember the Truck and Van M1.


Truck and Van, or Turbo Diesel Truck?

 

[SwampSurvivor]

The stuff we had in the garage was just regular old Mobil1 10w-30 or 5w-30.

But there was a Truck and Van oil that was for gas engine too

 

[MRtv]

I used Castrol GTX 10w30 in my vehicle then. I later used Chevron Supreme oil and switched to Sears oil which was packaged by Chevron then. I also tried the ARCO Graphite but that black tar stuff scared me pretty bad so once was all I would use it. Mobil 1 came out but was to expensive for me to use. There was another oil with PTFE or teflon but it didn't catch on and was dropped from production.

 

[MRtv]

Originally Posted By: Anduril
I didn't drive back then, but my dad used Castrol GTX. Now he makes too much money to do his own maintenance, and takes everything to the dealer.


He'd save money if he did it himself again. Then maybe that isn't important to him anymore.

 

[artificialist]

My dad used GTX in everything because he saw that kind of advertisement. He used GTX 20w50 in a 1987 Hyundai Excel and mechanics had to look at the odometer because they didn't believe him when he said he had 110,000 miles. Before he had that Hyundai, he had a 1979 Toyota Corolla and he used GTX there, too.

He used other viscosities of GTX in other cars in the family. I think he used 10w40 in mom's 1985 Nissan Maxima, and he used 10w30 in his 1992 Nissan Sentra and 1995 Honda Accord.

This is also why I use Castrol in many other cars. It just has a good history in my family.

 

[Dallas69]

I used a lot of Amalie, Havoline, and Royal Triton which was purple.
My Dad drag raced and had free Amalie so I used the oil he drained out every week.

 

[fdcg27]

Back in the eighties, I used 10W-40 of various brands in everything. I looked for deals then just as I do now and took full advantage of clearances and MIRs where available to build a stash. I used a lot more oil then than I do now since I was then a firm adherent to 3K drains.
My first syn oil was Slick 50 10W-30 that I bought at what was then called Odd Lots for cheap. This went into our then 90K '86 Civic Wagovan around 1991. I decided that syn might be worth the money and became an adherent of it in many applications and I daringly extended drains to 4K.
I've since come to realize that synthetic oil isn't magic and that short drains aren't necessary, although they may have been desirable on the conventional oils of the early eighties.
I began using thinner grades with our new '97 Aerostar, which called for 5W-30 and continued this with our next two Hondas, both sticks, a '97 coupe and a '99 4dr. All three of these saw mostly syn oil, M1, Syntec or PP later on.
Due mainly to longer drains, I've gone from using 70 quarts a year at my peak to around forty today.
I also bought a set of ramps which made oil changes luxuriously easy.

 

[CrackyWainwright]

I came of age driving in the mid-80s in rural Cherokee, Alabama where all I needed was some AC/DC and Hank, Jr cassettes to go with my Trans Am and mullet haircut. It also helped to have a Trojan dispenser on the dashboard. Here was the accepted "knowledge" back then:

1. QS and Havoline would sludge an engine too quickly, so avoid those.
2. Valvoline, Chevron, Amsoil, and Mobil 1 were much cleaner oils for engines.
3. Castrol was good too for engines of all types.

That was all I knew from 1985-1995.