What oil for a flathead Plymouth?

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Customer of mine bought a huge project. It's a WW2 Dodge Power wagon. It needs lots of help. Anyway I have ran the numbers on the engine and its a 230 from a 1956 Plymouth. It does not have any type of oil filter on it.

In my past we ran ND30 in engines that don't have an oil filter. I am in California and I can't get ND30 here.

Thoughts?
 
I know of one ND 30 and it is harbor freight compressor oil.

I would go with any SN rated 30 I can find by the jug. Most OPE doesn’t have oil filtration and the detergents in modern oil don’t bother them.

I wouldn’t go over 2k oci though
 
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Multi weight oil won't hurt it. I vote a stout 10W-30 such as Rotella or Valvoline VR-1 or any 15W-40 HD oil. My personal opinion is a 10W-30 will be beneficial with cranking speed when cold, (under say 72F) especially if it's still on 6 volts.
 
Clean out the oil pan, run either 10-30 or 20-50. If that engine lived on non detergent oil back in the day, and you put detergent oil in it there is a large possibility of the oil screen being blocked by debris.
 
Originally Posted By: redbone3
Clean out the oil pan, run either 10-30 or 20-50. If that engine lived on non detergent oil back in the day, and you put detergent oil in it there is a large possibility of the oil screen being blocked by debris.


Forgot to mention... put an oil pressure gauge on it. Either a diagnostic one or a permanent one. Just so you know it's there and steady.
 
Originally Posted By: Red91
Plain ol 30. Nothing special. Don't you use a lot of Proline, from Pep Boys? Proline 30 for the win.
ya I actually bought some sae30 for it but second guessed myself.. It has a mechanical gauge and it shows 40 psi. The bottom of the oil pan was a disaster. I have it soaking in solvent.
 
So what's the customer budget? Are we only trying to get it running? Or does the customer want it to run right ...

You could just put SAE 30 HD from Tractor Supply in there.

If it were mine or I was going to keep it running for somebody, I'd add a canister filter (they were optional on some early Chrysler products) and then run Delo 400 15W-30 SD (severe duty). The filter can be found on ebay or maybe just ordered through your local Napa store...

The engine does not need that oil per se, but the add pack is stout, and it's a very good oil with a narrow viscosity spread.

So have you had the tappet covers off? That is where you will see grunge if it's there.

I'll bet it needs a valve adjustment if it's been running unleaded... The exhaust valves may have receded some, tightening them up and loosing compression ... For the adjustment, I'd run them on the loose side of spec.

If the tappet boxes are pretty clean, it'll run multi-grade high detergent oil just fine
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Any HDEO 15W-40 would be very good
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You can get non-detergent oil from Napa or Tractor Supply.

Always run one quart of "detergent" 15W-40 oil mixed in - you need to have SOME cleaning action happening in there!!
 
Originally Posted By: Linctex
You can get non-detergent oil from Napa or Tractor Supply.

Always run one quart of "detergent" 15W-40 oil mixed in - you need to have SOME cleaning action happening in there!!
nope. You cannot get nd oil in California
 
Originally Posted By: Chris142
Customer of mine bought a huge project. It's a WW2 Dodge Power wagon. It needs lots of help. Anyway I have ran the numbers on the engine and its a 230 from a 1956 Plymouth. It does not have any type of oil filter on it.

In my past we ran ND30 in engines that don't have an oil filter. I am in California and I can't get ND30 here.

Thoughts?


I got SuperTech ND30 from Walmart for my compressor. Don't know if they still carry it
 
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