Technical What kind of fuel and oil ?

got the studebaker going now and want some help on what kind of oil and fuel to use on a reg basis. Should i use additives ? Help !!

 

Year and model of engine? Original build or a fresh rebuild?

Give us a bit more to work with.

 

Sorry shoulda said that too !!!
This is a 1938 studebaker 6cyl not rebuit beem sitting for over half its life

 

I would just use 87 unleaded fuel, and 5W30 oil from Walmart. The trick is to drive the car a lot....and if you end up having to let it sit more than a month or two, drain the fuel out of it.

 

Since you will be using cheaper oil, I'd change the oil every 500 miles for a couple of cycles.
Chances are your fuel tank and system has a lot of dirt.
I'd remove the tank and have it cleaned before running it too much.

 

I don't know if the non ethanol "recreational" fuel is available where you are, but if it is available I would use that and add Stabil to it once you clean out the fuel system and tank. There is a premium on the price, but it's worth it on an old car, which has components that WILL FAIL using ethanol.

 

I f you have a home depot near get a bottle of ethanol shield in the mower weed wacker isle.Much better than stabil.

 

I'm usually on board with about 99.98768% of what Mr. Squirrel says. I have to disagree with his oil advice. No, not the "Walmart" suggestion, the wt. In the "winter/summer" oil specs on that engine you'll see a difference as was the practice in the old days. That sloppy old engine will want something heavier. As you roll around town it's gonna get hot in all the right and wrong places. As a 1st fill and some easy running and heat cycles I agree, gets it to go into everything and clean it up. You might even Marvel Mystery the 1st fill too but let eat for just 100 miles or so and dump it. Enjoy how black it's going be too but don't panic. You want that. Once you like what you have put something heavier in it. Hell, 20/50 won't hurt it, in fact once heat soaked on those hot summer days it'll thank you. Modern additives and the like will help it stay clean, the extra wt will keep things protected, all in all the right thing to do. My Packard likes it

 

10w30 for the older diesels. I use non ethanol gas in my old stuff. It's 89 octane around here.
A lot of marine gas is non ethanol. A little more expensive , but way easier on the rubber parts of your fuel system.

 

Interesting about the oil weight. I'm a Chevy guy, and in the 30s Chevrolet recommended nothing heavier than SAE 30. Maybe Studes and Packards were built a bit "looser"?

I've not had any problems with lighter weight oils in the old stuff I play with. And it gets hot here.

 

If you'll read what I posted a little more closely, you'll see that I was in advocating use of Stabil, using it in non ethanol "recreational" gas.
When I can't get non ethanol I use "Stabil 360*" which is formulated for use in ethanol containing gas.

 

91 octane non oxygenated, I run it in everything, you'll pull about 2 mpgs better from it so the cost is about the same in the end. Oil 15W-40 Rotella.

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Actually I would recommend thick oil for Studebakers. and probably most older worn cars...
A very common comment many Stude drivers make is that their oil pressure drops quite a bit after the engine warms up. Some say they can barely see it on the gauge when idling warm. Not uncommon.
HOT OIL. When I use Valvoline 20-50 oil in my Studes they dont drop the pressure so much when they warm up.
I've been using it since the early 70s, and I believe it has served me well.
Especially in older well worn engines, I very strongly recommend avoiding thin oils, cheap oils, store brand oils. ..And stick with the good name brands like Castrol, Valvoline, etc.
I kept an oil temperature gauge in my Hawk oil pan for a few decades, and was very surprised to see the huge differences in oil temps between different brands.
The brand of oil you choose makes a HUGE difference in oil temps and how long the hot hot bearings can hold up.
The coolest temps I have registered have come from Pennzoil, Valvoline, Castrol, Mobil 1.
So many other "name brands" (walmart, havoline,...)and off brands I have tried produced such high oil temps, getting very close to 280-300 I was worried it wouldn't finish the trip, so I did a roadside oil change far far from home because I didn't want to come back after towing a trailer with rattling bearings again.
After I started watching the oil pan temp gauge, I have refined my oil brand choices, and have never had another crank bearing failure in decades.
NEVER use cheap oil, no matter what.
STP oil treatment does make a difference.
When I first bring in a car, very frequent oil changes in the first few hundred miles helps get rid of the crud, dirt, and abrasives that have built up over the years.
Sooo... I recommend 3-4 frequent oil changes at first then use high quality oil of higher viscosity from then on.
I am still driving the 1962 Stude engine I installed in 1974, and re-ringed sometime in the mid 80s.
Still going....
...but that's just me...


why be ordinary?

 

If you have a Menards in the area they have Valvoline VR-1 20w50 (high zinc content) for about $5.00 a quart. I use that exclusively in my flathead that's been running for 35 years now, good stuff!

 

How much oil pressure does a bearing need?

I'm just curious, because there are quite a few old Chevy engines running still that never had any pressure at all in the rod bearings. Zero.

Which is why I'm a bit skeptical of the claims that having higher oil pressure will make the engine last longer.

 

Come from world of dirt Sprint cars making 900+ RWHP. If it ain't got 80+ oil pressure something is wrong.

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Not the world of Studebaker flathead sixes?

Maybe things work a little differently at 8000 rpm.

 

The actual OEM spec on oil pressure for Packard is 7-10 hot idle, 35-40 running in high gear. Don't exactly recall the verbage about the higher pressure. Duesenberg spec is 10-15 hot idle, 10 PSI per 10 MPH, but I don't recall their max. To be fair both of those have externally adjustable pressure regulators.

 

The truck in my avatar 1950 Chevy has a 5.3L in it runs on 15-w40, engines shouldn't run on water. Runs 60 psi at idle 50 hot and jumps to where it belongs at 80 under throttle. We build engines and don't ever recommend 5-w30.

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man theres a lot of choices here, but i do see one prevelant choice 20w-50 so as i use valvoline in everything i think this is the way to go, sounds good.
im gonna change oil after a couple drives and let the thin stuff in there do some cleaning and then swap it for thicker stuff.
as for gas i was worried about if todays gas would hurt the engine and wondrered if i should use a octane booster or some additive to help keep it running good, may try whats mentioned here and see what it runs like.
thanks everyone for your help
goatboy

 

If it hasn't had modern hardened valve seats installed at some point. Then yes today's shit no lead fuel will eventually hammer your seats out. Running non oxygenated fuel will help this issue some, but not fully cure it. You should run either a lead additive or a lead substitute. It's not so much the octane that's the issue, but the fact that older engines were built with the fact that fuel had free top end lubrication as a result of having lead in the fuel. Some of the companies that make top lube for Methanol engines may be beneficial to look into.

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sounds good schwanke, i will look for some, thx

 

Most all Pontiac's came with an in-dash oil pressure light, they were set to come on at about 5 psi!
60 to 80 psi oil pressure is doing nothing but eating hp and wearing out the oil drive system.

I run 5w20 in my 250 inline six, oil pressure is 10 to 12 psi hot, and has run for 10,000 miles without issue, all on 87 octane, 10% ethanol laced fuel.

 

when I wanted to know about the Oil that Had Zink in it I got
a Lot of Different ones so I called Lucas & they Told me to get Lucas Break in Oil
and on every Oil Change put 2 oz. in the Oil
which I do & I use Castro 10w30 Engine is a 327/300 Stock in my 50 Merc.

Just my 3.5 cents

Live Learn & Die a Fool

 

I forgot to say that the Gas with out ethanol is Great & worth the Extra Money
I had Better Power & gas Milage!

Just my 3.5 cents

Live Learn & Die a Fool

 

On lead and valve seats, you have to do a lot of driving to cause damage, something like 10K+/year. Still it's nice to get some in there once in a while but I don't think it's instant death if you don't use it all the time. Av gas, race fuel, additives, all work but like drinking and religion moderation is the key. Don't panic if you're away and need gas. Gas from the 30s was pretty shitty. It was dirty by today's standards and some of it was better suited as parts cleaning fluid. Even with our standard issue E-10 it's better. As far as carb issues and E-10, get a rebuild kit from Daytona Carburetor (of course in Daytona FL) and go through it. Their parts are safe for ethanol blended gas and hold up quite well. Have a few cars out there with their stuff in it for years, no running issues yet.

 

again thanks guys all this helps a lot

 

I use Lucas and 20w50 in almost everything. Never any bearing problems. As to gas, pure gas is better, ethanol gas is OK if you drive it regular and don't let it sit, it will draw moisture from the air, so a good additive to prevent that would be a good idea. The newer thin oils are formulated for the tighter tolerances in the new engines, I prefer the heaver weights in the olders because they aren't as tight. My favorite brands are Pennzoil and the Walmart brand, never had a problem out of either. The Walmart stuff is bottled by one of the big names, can't remember which one right now, and according to some tests I've seen is as good as any of the name brands. I'd stay away from the Dollar General stuff though, it's pretty low quality from what I read.

 

The Dollar General oil is probably closer to what was available in the 30s I don't use it.

Thin oils work fine, but most guys are too chicken to try them. Most guys aren't engineers, either. Fortunately, engines don't care what brand of oil you use, and are not real finicky about viscosity over the relatively short term.

 

What people seem to fail in grasping is the multi- viscosity aspect of modern oils. A 5W-30 oil is just as free flowing at low temps as a straight 5W oil, and about as viscous as water when hot. But a 5W-30 oil is thin and free flowing at cold startup but yet at normal and above temps it holds it's body like a 30W oil.
True racing oils don't come in multi-viscosity, although there's nothing to prohibit them being so advertised, because you can't get as much of the other, more important additives in the oil, such a friction reducing modifiers when you add in the polymers, etc. that keep the oil form thinning at high temps. This simple fact of only having just so much room in a quart bottle is also the reason racing oils are not really a good idea in a daily driver used in short trip, stop and go driving, because the additives for detergent action also take up room in that same quart bottle and do little good in a true racing engine which receives frequent oil changes and frequent teardowns for maintenance and inspection.
For this old engine, that's been sitting up for "over half it's life", if you're not gonna at least pull the pan and scrape out the sludge, I would find the cheapest oil I could that had an API seal rating it's duty. And for at least 3-4 oil changes I would run/drive it enough to get to operating temp for no more than 100 miles and drain while oil is hot. Then you can start stretching it out towards 500-1000.
But if you have torn down as many old, sitting up for years engines as I have in the last 65 years, you would at least pull the pan and get out all the sludge you can, especially on an old engine without a full flow oil filter, and most likely, not even a bypass filter.