Midwest Motoring (www.midwestmotoring.com) thanks our sponsor, www.krajniakgroup.com
Maintaining any car can seem like a daunting task. There are videos to help with things like rebuilding carburetors or installing a convertible top, but what about simple things like just changing the oil?
A few tips: Always make sure to locate and open the places where you fill the fluid back up. That's easy with an oil change, but the same goes for things like transmission fluid or diff oil. If you can't fill it back up, don't drain it out until you fix that. Next, keep the area clean. There's no sense in draining dirty oil only to replace it with the dirt and grime you left around the oil cap. Make sure you have the right fluid. Always use the manufacturer's original specification (meaning weight, such as 10W40 or 20W50). There's a little more latitude with gear oil, but that's for a different video.
Also, while we used Valvoline VR1--a higher zinc oil--in this car, it's worth noting that it's simply not necessary in your average MGB, Triumph TR, Spitfire, Austin Healey, Jag, or what have you. The logic is that the oil damages engines with flat tappet cams, which is only kind of true. The correct amount of ZDDP (not too much... just enough) IS necessary, but only for flat tappet cam engines with high valve spring pressures. In a stock engine found in a TR6 or a Healey 3 litre... the spring pressures simply aren't high enough to cause a problem. Use a quality oil right off the shelf of your local auto parts store. I usually buy something like VR1 for other peoples' cars entirely because they're paying for it and I don't have the energy for the argument... but the entire Midwest Motoring fleet (a 71 Triumph TR6, 64 Triumph Spitfire, 74 Leyland Mini, 67 Triumph GT6, and a 62 Healey 3000) all run on regular, modern oil with no special formulations. They're all driven thousands of miles, including highway driving and even autocrosses, each year with no ill effects. I'll add that the Jeeps built up until about 2006 or so often used a 4.0 straight 6. That engine was a carryover from AMC when Chrysler took it over, and it was a flat tappet cam engine. In fact, it was an evolution of the AMC "Torque Command" engine from 1964. Even in 2006, while this engine was in the Wrangler, Chrysler never came out with suggestions that different oils be used, and those engines did hundreds of thousands of miles. So... unless you have modified heads on your Chevy small block built for street performance... you simply don't need special oil in your MG Midget. It's a myth now, and has been for decades. Just change your oil in the fall instead of the spring so you don't leave combustion byproducts over the winter and you'll be fine, and drive your car so it doesn't sit in the first place. End rant. Next week, maybe we'll tackle ethanol in gasoline....
28 июн 2023
