Favorite oils/lubricants

[HealeyCopter]

Put the car up on the jack stands this morning, it ran smooth off the ground in 4th gear no vibration so wheels were not taken off

No Hydraulic pressure at all from the pump even in 4th gears running up around 2000 rpm, in fact took the gauge out along with the ball spring & plunger & no oil at all making it to the valve operating valve chamber :frown:

Oh well looks like some in depth disassembly down on the pump side :wink: . . . sometime after I can get heat in the shop... to be continued.....

 

[Keoke]

Well it seems to me IF you have

"ZERO hydraulic pressure"

You have a defective pump

with a 1st gear run at 2500-3000 rpm. I also tried the operating lever on the RH side of the overdrive as suggested still no pressure. Once up on jack stands I will see if there is any hydraulic pressure in 4th gear & look for problems with the non-return valve & pump.

--------------------------Keoke

 

[mwagon]

Even thou a few people responded saying they use regular engine oil in their Healey trans, with success. My understanding from different sources was you can only use Non-Detergent grade motor oils in a Healey trans with an O/D, due to regular engine oil has anti-friction additives that will eventually cause the OD clutch to slip

 

[Keoke]

Yes that was a significant concern.mwagon

Further, some of the early gear boxes contained brass parts that were being attacked by some of the additives in the new oils,

However newer oils have been toned so much that they no longer appear to have detrimental affects on the gear boxes.

OTOH, You can still meet the original preferred criteria by using a single viscosity racing oil such as Valvoline VRI--Fwiw--Keoke.
.

 

[DTDuck]

I was wondering if anyone had a list of their favorite oils/lubricants for Healeys..
I see Randy likes Red Line 80W140 for steering boxes, but how about manual transmissions (w/OD), rear diffs, brake fluid, clutch fluids, shock fluid, greases and other lubricants.
This my be helpful to have one list in one place...
thanks to all for contributing.
rich

The lesson I learned from my years racing Spridgets was to only use Valvoline VR1 Racing Oil (it used to just be Valvoline Racing Oil).
I Raced with a bunch of guys that raced Mini's, Spridgets, Spitfires, a TR4, etc. Over the years we tried a variety of oils (Including Redline & Castrol) but we all got converted over time to the Valvoline as we never had any oil related issues or failures using it. This is with spinning those A-Series engines up to 8,500 to 9,000 Rpm Regularly. I would never use anything else if possible.

In a pinch Castrol is fine if the Valvoline isn't available, but I would change it out as soon as practical.
Just one man's opinion.

Cheers,
Dan M.

 

[Bob_Spidell]

I've never done oil analysis before, but out of curiosity I had one done after my BJ8's overhaul. This is for over 5,200 miles of running; 3qts VR1 and 2pts of GM EOS added (ran break-in oil for 250m before switching to VR1):



I prefer synthetic oils--I prefer Redline products--in gearbox/OD and rear axle.