Lucas makes good products, I've prolonged the life of balky automatics by putting in fresh fluid and a quart of their stuff.





thanks, Mark

Every filter is clean on my engine, when I got the car every filter was blocked.. the pickup screen had about 1 pin hole left.. poor gal had never been looked after servicing-wise.

 I am running a PCV valve aswell.



"Came too close to dying to stop living now!"

One thing that is usually forgoten with the issue of "sludge", is crankcase ventilation! On stock engines the only intake venting is thru the oil filler cap screen. They have a real tendency to be plugged up with dirt & oily residue. Unless your take the cap off & really look at it, the problem is missed. The caps filter screen needs to be cleaned regularly, or there is virtually "no" crankcase ventilation!...

Paul

Running 20 - 60 good quality already..



"Came too close to dying to stop living now!"

It sounds like a jump up to 20/50 might help.  If not, like Ted said.

Mike, located in the Siskiyou mountains, Southern, OR 292 powered 1946 Ford 1/2 ton, '62 Mercury Meteor, '55 Country Squire (parting out), '64 Falcon, '54 Ford 600 tractor.

Well initially the oil pressure came up but after putting a few hundred klm on the ol' gal think its all back to normal. She has had a work out, yesterday it was getting close to the ol' 100 outside, and it was was mile after mile. I have found now the oil pressure is SLOW on starting up, And again oil pressure drops away at idle once hot. I will try the oil pump Rick gave me in the near future and see what happens..

 Verdict on the lucas heavy duty oil stabilizer? ..  Ahh hard to say.. mm maybe she's a little quieter..did it really do anything.. nah ..!



"Came too close to dying to stop living now!"

Rob, I have a spare oil pump which you can try. I'll bring it on Sunday

Regards

Rick - West Australia
Do Y Blocks Downunder run upside down? Gravity Sucks!!

I've been adding a quart of Lucas to Rotella 15W-40 for several years now. WAS using straight 30W, but with 100K on the original bearings the pressure was down to 5 psi at idle (30 psi @ 2000 rpm). Since I drive in cold weather I switched to the multi-weight Rotella, and now with the added Lucas idle pressure is 15 (40 @ 2000 rpm). Over 125K miles on the clock now and still running like gangbusters.

Have a new motor "waiting in the wings", but can't bring myself to pull the plug on such a strong runner.

6 VOLTS/POS. GRD. NW INDIANA

Okay guys this is one I can speak to from a life time of experience. A tired and worn Y block loves an oil additive that raises oil pressure. Although I've heard good things about Lucas, I always used STP engine oil additive. I built a worn out engine back in 1963 that had 100,000 miles on it. All I could afford was rings, rod and main bearings and had a machine shop grind the valves. I always added a can of STP every time I changed oil. As everyone knows, getting sufficient oil to the rocker arm shafts is in my opinion the Y blocks biggest weak point. Sludged up oil passage ways between the cam bearing and rocker arm shafts was probably the biggest culprit back in the day. The second issue was worn cam and main bearings on high mileage engines which limited the amount of oil to the rocker arm shafts. This is where raising the oil viscosity made a big difference because it increased the oil pressure, forcing more oil up through the oil passages to the rocker arm shafts. At 200,000 miles and with the original cam bearings that 312 was still running. By then I was running 40 weight oil and STP and although there was not an abundance of oil to the rocker arm shafts, there was enough that it wasn't an issue. On a hot idling engine I could actually see the oil pressure go up 5 to 10 pounds when the STP was added. Just going to 40 weight oil helped but STP gave it added viscosity and would adhere to metal surfaces much better than oil which was especially good for cold start up's and no, I do no work for STP Now....one word of caution if you are just trying to extend the life of the engine I strongly recommend you drop the oil pan and clean any sludge build up from the oil pickup screen. I have seen cases where the oil pickup screen was so gunked up and restricted that the engine was starved for oil when the oil viscosity was raised. Short of a rebuild, keeping that oil pressure up and changing oil regularly will extend the life of you Y block more than anything else. I know some may not agree with my analysis on STP, but I continued to use it at every oil change even in my new cars until the close tolerance engines of recent years came out requiring 5W20 oil and I never had an engine failure.

buddy

Sounds like loose clearances at the bearings and/or the oil pump.  Based on the mileage, I would suspect bearings more than oil pump but the oil pump is obviously easy so look at it first.  If the oil pump checks out, then this would be a good time for a ‘freshen up’ on the bearings before more serious damage sets in.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)