oil.....what are you running and what are the 'effects'

[Mike Y]

Hi
I recently bought 10w 60 Mobil One from Opie Oils. I have not dared to drive the car on the road. Top end engine noise has increased significantly 91,000 miles on the clock.
I must say I have been having a problem with top end noise prior to the oil change but had put this down to a CAS problem. The oil change certainly made the noise increase my oil pressure increased slightly also. Very confused as to what oil to use!!!

Cheers Mike

[rip]

I recently bought 10w 60 Mobil One

What viscosity were you using before?
An increase in viscosity will increase pressure & decrease flow.

[Mike Y]

Sorry I don't know the viscosity as the car has been off the road for 8 years prior to this it was serviced by Chris Foulds.

The oil that came out the engine was considerably thinner than the new oil, which is to be expected with used oil I suppose.

I spoke to Opie Oils today and they were as helpful as they could be be but stated that there are so few Elans in existance for them to get feedback its no like dealing with a Scooby owner.

I am thinking of moving to a 10w 40 fully synthetic motor sport oil.

Cheers Mike

[theelanman]

Mike
the thinner the oil the fast it gets round the engine and warms up.....and hence the faster the tapping goes.....
the thicker it is the slower it takes and the longer it takes for the tapping to go.....

how long does your tapping go on for?....

[theelanman]

thinner oil needs less pressure to get it shifting....
thicker oil takes more pressure.......

[Mike Y]

The tapping does not go away even when hot.
I understand the principals of oil viscosity and was discussing this with Opie oils. All the 9 M100's I have owned would rattle their tappets after being laid up for a period of months. This would in every case be resolved by allowing the engine to warm up then switch the engine off for 5 mins restart and run at fast idle for a few mins switch off and repeat until the tappets fully refilled. I can only think the oil is too thick even when hot.
I am awaiting a replacement CAS assembly which I hope should remove that noise from the equation.

I have been concerned the engine was not as smooth as it should be from a valve drive train point of view but settled on the conclusion that the CAS was transfering vibration through the exhaust cam into the top of the engine. Making diagnosis difficult. Putting a tube on the cam cover and then on the CAS housing seemed to confirm the harshness originated from the CAS. So I thought lets do an oil change as 8 year old oil cannot be helping the situation. Now I am concerned that maybe the CAS is not the only problem! However I will change the CAS and the oil to a thinner oil before pulling the engine apart. Has anyone else had issues with rough valve train non of my previous Elans have suffered from this problem?? The car has covered 90K with FLSH.

Has anyone else used Mobil 1 10w 60 Motorsport oil and had these problems??

Cheers Mike

[rip]

lets do an oil change as 8 year old oil cannot be helping the situation.

Oil does not just get contaminated & torn to bits by engine movement, it also breaks down with age.
Did you use an engine flush when you changed this old stuff?

[Artaban]

Not had any problems with Castrol Edge 10w-60 Titanium; not sure if the Mobil version would differ in any way.
Tapping used to last 30-45 seconds on cold start up but now I have no tapping noise at all on start up since I added TSL oil additive http://www.tsl-allstar.nl/?lang=en and removed the sump to clean out the oil pickup. Engine runs noticeably better. 144,000 miles
Andy

[lotusflasherman]

Sorry I don't know the viscosity as the car has been off the road for 8 years prior to this it was serviced by Chris Foulds.

The oil that came out the engine was considerably thinner than the new oil, which is to be expected with used oil I suppose.

I spoke to Opie Oils today and they were as helpful as they could be be but stated that there are so few Elans in existance for them to get feedback its no like dealing with a Scooby owner.

I am thinking of moving to a 10w 40 fully synthetic motor sport oil.

Cheers Mike

Mine was serviced by Kelvedon Lotus and they filled it with "MILLERS OILS CFS 10W-60 COMPETITION FULL SYNTHETIC ENGINE OIL" which is still in there.
The Shell app on my phone tells me that Helix Ultra Racing 10W-60 is their oil for the Elan M100.

Elan Handbook says preferred is 10W/30, alternative Mobil 1 Rally Formula 5W/50 but was written 25 years ago and oil technology has made significant advances in that time.

Changing your oil to 10W-40 from 10W-60 will make absolutely no difference to the engine when starting from cold as they are both 10W... which is the viscosity when cold. The W suffix means it's equivalent to a SAE 10 in Winter (about 0°C). The upper figure is the equivalent viscosity when the engine is hot (100°C) so the '60 oil' will remain thicker - or perhaps I should say 'less thin', than the '40 oil' when at 100°C.

There should be no significant difference in the viscosity of used oil compared to new oil - it's just the used oil is full of contaminants that affect it's ability to lubricate. It's probably that most people drain out warm oil and fill with cold oil and think the new is thicker - well it will be, it's colder!

Also 'oil pressure on the gauge' is not an accurate indication of how well the engine is lubricated. I raced a 1000cc Mini in the 70's with sponsorship from Castrol and used Castrol R (SAE30) in the Mini and they supplied GTX for my road car. I commented that oil pressure was now lower on GTX (15W-40) than it had been on Duckhams Q 20/50 and the Castrol man said he 'can supply treacle if you want high oil pressure but it will do 'F' all to lubricate the engine' - and then went on to explain 'the essentials of lubrication'... Mini is a bit tricky as the transmission is in the sump and runs in engine oil so the cogs & bearings have a hard life when the engine is producing almost 3 times the power of the production unit. Adding STP made a significant improvement to bearing life.

I have another M100 on SORN that I fire up fairly regularly but that's got a 'sticky' cam follower that clatters a bit when cold but goes quiet as the engine warms up and the hydraulic adjustment starts working. I'm going to try changing the oil and adding some TSL Oil treatment to see if that cures it.

[rdodger]

I'm using Lucas 5-40 Fully synthetic.

The car seems happy enough on that and is quieter than it was before I changed it.

[Mike Y]

Engine flush was used at the oil change.

Artaban was there much to clean out of the pick up pipe and at what mileage was this done?

Cheers Mike

[lotusflasherman]

Engine flush was used at the oil change.

Artaban was there much to clean out of the pick up pipe and at what mileage was this done?

Cheers Mike

Problem with engine flush is making sure it's all out before you fill with the oil you're going to run with.

[Fredjohn]

I've just changed my oil and filter and used Castrol Edge 10w-60 FST, as before. Quite happy with it: I would normally flush with a cheap version of the oil I use, but unfortunately there is no cheap version of a 10w-60!!!

Eurocarparts are currently selling the Castrol at £34.99 for 4 litres. Their cheapest is Petronas 10w-60 Syntium Racer X1 at £31.99 for 4 litres: cheap but still too expensive to use as a flush!

I've also just changed the oil/filter in my old S4: I used Comma 20/50 at £9.99 to flush and Comma Classic 20/50 to refill at £15 for 5 litres.

[dapinky]

I would normally flush with a cheap version of the oil I use, but unfortunately there is no cheap version of a 10w-60!!!

...but there's nothing to say that you have to throw away the oil you use to flush it!

You can always run it for a couple of days, then drain it out and store it until next oil change - it should last fairly indefinitely, and actually be cheaper than using a cheap oil for flushing if you throw it away.

(or, just use the flushing-out oil in your cr@ppy old Vectra)

[lotusflasherman]

I would normally flush with a cheap version of the oil I use, but unfortunately there is no cheap version of a 10w-60!!!

...but there's nothing to say that you have to throw away the oil you use to flush it!

You can always run it for a couple of days, then drain it out and store it until next oil change - it should last fairly indefinitely, and actually be cheaper than using a cheap oil for flushing if you throw it away.

(or, just use the flushing-out oil in your cr@ppy old Vectra)

Are you guys talking about using a 'flush' that's added to engine oil? I've used Comma Flushing Oil on some engines but never needed to on an Elan.
Dedicated Flushing Oil is very thin (low viscosity) with a high detergent content and I wouldn't want to drive the car on it.
The way I used it was :
Drain old oil from a hot engine & change filter.
Refill with Flushing Oil and run engine for about 20 minutes at working temperature.
Drain Flushing oil & change filter. Flushing oil comes out 'black as the Ace of Spades' but pour it into a 1 gallon polythene container and allow it to stand.
Refill engine with correct oil and cost of exercise is one filter plus a small amount of Flushing Oil.
After about 2 weeks all the carbon 'crud' can be seen to have settled to the bottom and 80 to 90 % of the clear flushing oil can be carefully poured back into the container for re-use.

Electrical Fitters in the Electricity Supply Industry told me that Transformer Insulating Oil (to BS 148) made a very good flushing oil too, and it was very cheap ...

[dapinky]

Phil,

I totally agree with you about 'proper' flushing oil, and not driving the car with it.

The way I do it, and the rationale behind it may well not stand up to engineering & science, but it seems okay to me!!!!

When it's time for a change I drain the old oil whilst warm, then fill with my 'flushing' oil - which is just another 15w40 Semi-synthetic.

After a day or so (not much mileage!) I drain whilst warm, change the filter and refill with new oil (still 15w40 Semi). I retain the oil drained from the 'flush' for next time.

My theory being that there will always be 'old' oil somewhere in the engine, and definitely in the oil cooler/pipework.

Doing it 'my' way gives this old oil a chance to mix with good oil and gets more crud out of the oil radiator.

I have used the same gallon of oil for the last 3 years, obviously by using a 5 litre can it allows you to leave the bottom litre in the can with any/most of the collected sediment.

To be honest, changing the oil after a year - with the mileage done - shouldn't need a flush anyway, but it's just what i've always done

[Artaban]

Yes there was a lot of crud in the oil pick up but a liberal spraying (whole tin) of carb cleaner got rid of it. It was only done a month or so ago so just less than the current 144K. I'd put TSL oil in before the cleaning of the oil pick up and it did quieten down the tapping but didn't get rid of it completely. I'd only run it in the engine for about 3 months (1000 miles) but as the suspension was removed and the prongeron out of the way I decided to take the opportunity to remove the sump and clear out the oil pick up as a lot of people had mentioned it could get dirty. With the new Castrol oil and TSL top up (slightly less required on an oil change) and the tapping had completely gone. Well worth giving the TSL a go but I would remove the sump if you've no record of the oil pick up being cleaned.
Andy

[tigerdog]

I've gone back to LiquiMoly Synthoil 5W40. This seems to have the best combination of startup/low temp flow and high temp viscosity to make Smaug happy. Very little tick from cam followers even when starting after 4-6 weeks of sitting. Oil pressure at idle is still quite good even when fully up to temp. I can't speak to wear or engine cleanliness but Smaug gets so few miles these days, I don't think anything is going to make a huge difference.

[Jamie N]

Ive gone back to Olive oil 5/99, especially great for seafoods like clamshafts, big end shells and bi-valves.

[Rambo]

Can you use it on the carp ets or do you find its still too viscous ?