Which Oil For A Pinto Injection

[Guest FIRSTBUILD]

I have been using Duckhams 20/50 for a while - I dont like the stuff it stinks when the engine breaths etc.

 

 

the man in the motor factors says that no vehicle has relied on 20/50 since 1973 !

 

any comments ?

 

thanks

 

Steve

[Guest combatsapph]

20/50 will do for a relatively old engine.

 

I use 10/40 semi in my rebuilt Pinto.

[speedtripledan]

me to 10 40 semi in my recon pinto

[agent_zed]

the man in the motor factors says that no vehicle has relied on 20/50 since 1973 !

 

Thats when the pinto was made though

 

I used 15w40 (i think) and it smokes more than it used to. going to go back to 20w50 and gum up those holes

[ibrooks]

the man in the motor factors says that no vehicle has relied on 20/50 since 1973 !

 

Would suggest you either find another motor factors or simply learn to ignore him. It matters not a stuff when the car was made - it's a case of what the engine was designed for. The Pinto is an old design (it was old when it first appeared in UK cars). Quite simply the oil-ways and tolerances are optimised for a thicker oil. If you start shoving thinner stuff in there it's not going to work as expected.

 

One of my other passions is Minis and we see a lot of trouble with later cars due to the same thing. Rover in their wisdom (laziness) started specifying 10w40 in the later owners manuals so that they only had to stock one sort of oil at the dealers/assembly line (all the other petrol cars at the time used the thinner oil). They hadn't changed anything else about the engine. They lasted the warraty period just fine but once they've got a few years down the line they tend to start chewing up gearbox bearings and camshafts (especially on the Coopers and JCG conversions where the lift was a little higher and valve springs were a bit stiffer).

 

On a freshly built engine you'll get away with it for a good number of miles before you start seeing problems but this is more of an indication of the resilience of the engines than anything else.

 

Iain

[Guest Deano 777]

HI, if you are planning on being hard on the engine and doing a few track days, i use valvoline racing VR1 20w50 mineral, thats my personal preferance,remember the oil is the engines blood the better the oil the longer the engine will last.

[Guest old_timbo]

I was using a 10w40, but when the engine got hot in traffic it was noticably noisier from the top end. I'm now using Halfords Classic 20w50 and its much better. Halfords oils are made by Castrol I think.

 

Tim

[SSSLINE]

ZDDPlus (Zinc Dialkyl Dithiophosphate) would appear to be the important factor, almost more so than viscosity, see Burton link Burtons

 

That said a quick search on the opieoils web site says 5w30 for a pinto (Sierra) engine !!! Link

[Guest mower man]

Hi re engine oil,I use 15/40 semi synth no problems other slight weeps from sump and cam cover gaskets and general sweatiness [typical ford],I always add STP OR WYNNS not lost an engine through lube issues in 40+ years of moderatly hard driving [road rallies inc] .Pinto's seemto like thicker oil, I would not use anything like 0 rated synth HTH MOWER MAN

[Guest FIRSTBUILD]

thanks for the replys,

 

I think I am happy to go with the semi syn.

 

it feels like a better lubricant - most old Ford engines fume a bit and the tolerances are not that tight so the fact that they are getting better oil should help - all oils are very thin at operating temperatures.

 

I have a Saxo that is fully synthetic and I am always impressed as to how clean the oil is when it gets changed ( car has 120k on it) so I am hoping the semi syn will do the same in the Pinto.

 

 

Steve