[T3] Stuck wheel cylnders

Jim Adney jadney at vwtype3.org
Thu Sep 13 21:28:30 PDT 2012


On 13 Sep 2012 at 21:04, Dennis Stiefel wrote:

> OK I know I'm going to sound stupid here but I've never heard of Brad Penn.
> Is that like Pennzoil?  I guess you can get it on line. Never seen it in a
> parts store. I have been doing some of research on the zinc in oil thing and
> I get a lot of different answers on that one.

I'm sure that none of us know the full story on motor oils, but my 
impression is that due to poisoning of catalylic converters, federal 
specs have been slowly deleting some of the compounds out of motor 
oil.

When our engines were new, they called for SC/SD motor oil (spark 
ignition, C or D version.) As time passed, motor oil improved and 
later versions became the norm, and for a long time the later 
versions were better for everyone, including old cars with flat 
tappet cams. Now we are up to something like SM oil, and the zinc and 
phosphorus are all gone.

You have 3 choices:

1) Do nothing. Use SM oil and take your chances. Not at all 
recommended for a new engine.  

2) Buy special oil that meets an older standard.

3) Buy SM oil and add the additives that the cam and lifters need.

A forth choice, which I've been following is to buy diesel oil that 
meets modern Diesel standards (C for compression) and also meets an 
older spark standard, like SL. To this, you can also add something 
like the Lucas cam breakin lube to boost the zinc and phosphorus 
content for the first few oil changes. 

I discovered that I could buy good 15W-40 Diesel oil in 2 gal jugs 
for about $18, which is a good weight choice and a VERY good price. 
That's a lot of VW oil changes, but it's also about the price of one 
Brad Penn oil change. Read the back label to see what kind of S 
rating it has. It won't be mentioned on the front.

As you might have noticed, I'm a pretty frugal guy, so I'm really not 
a fan of "boutique" products of any kind. That goes for most any 
commodity, including engine oil.
-- 
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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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