I know oil's aint oil's.......but I just run Castrol GTX....or if I feel like splashing out, I buy GTX2 Same goes for my daily hack AND the better daily hack my wife drives.

Let me just say this......

When I bought Pops he had a genuine 66000 miles and hadn't been driven for 5 years. The old digger gave me a HEAP of stuff (junk) with Pops, like a bottle of interior cleaner that hadn't been opened in 20 years, 'NEW' car mats that were 25 years old....etc...

Amongst it was 4L of new 'Price Brand' oil......

When I get Pops running I had nothing in the garage except that....so I wacked it in with a new filter...better than the sludge that was in there....

When idling Pops oil pressure sits on 50....driving it's on 70 Not bad for BUDGET oil!!!

I just run old GTX2 in FYB. While we're on the subject of oils, I changed the oil last weekend and either the PO or the mechanic I had change it when I bought the car has overtightened the sump plug and stripped the thread in the sump (the plug goes not much past hand tight). It doesn't leak badly from it (yet) but I'd like to fix it, what's the best way to do this?

my guess would be to find a suitable sump plug from anothe rmake. It would have to be larger in diameter. Tap out yout threaded hole to suit the replacement plug.

Box would have to be out, as the swarf from tapping the hole would need to be flushed out.

I've used Shell Helix Plus (15W-50??) for no particular reason - but my engine's now due for its 2nd oil change (3500 miles on the clock). I just bought a 2002 BA Fairmont Ghia which will probably have to use whatever the dealer uses (for the warranty), but in my EF Fairmont I always used Caltex Havoline Synthetic 10W-50 and it was very good - oil still clean after 10000km on an engine with 220000km on the clock. I always wanted to use synthetic in the mini. For every person who says there will be problems there seems to be someone else who says it will be fine. Still it makes me a bit nervous so I've decided to go with the best just to be sure. I'm picking up some Redline oil tomorrow. 15W-50 @ $150 for 4.7L. Sure its expensive but its probably no more expensive than paying someone else to do an oil change and they'd probably but using $20 oil. As a Polyol Ester based synthetic the redline stuff is supposed to be much stronger than the more common and usually cheaper PAO based synthetics. The guy at GoGear here in Perth that sells it uses it in his race car and it lasts the whole race season without being changed. In his road cars he changes it every 40000km and its still fine. The reviews I've read say its the best so we'll see how it goes... anyone else used Redline?

I use HPR 40 on my road car as its nice and thick havent had a single problem yet with it.
Castrol R in my race motor.

poeee and i were talking to the guy who is fixing poeees mini, and he said it doesn't really matter what brand of oil you use in your mini, what matters is the rating assigned to it. Every oil has a 's' rating. MInis were designed to run on an oil with a rating of SE, but you cant but that oil anymore, so anything with a rating of SF or SG will do. DO NOT under any circumstances, use an oil with a higher rating, ie SH, SJ, SL etc. these are for newer cars and are very bad for minis.

So in theory, you can get away with cheap oil from the supermarket, which has an SF rating, but poeee always uses something a little more expensive and branded. He uses Castrol Forumula R 25w50, the "black" label, the fully mineral stuff (the other Formula R oils are like $65), which has an SG rating. Supercheap sells it for an itsy bit under $30, which aint bad at all.

So if you dont feel comfortable buying the cheap stuff (maybe you dont trust it), even the well known brands make oil with the required rating at a cheapish price.

Remember, with a Mini using the sump oil for the gearbox, do an oil change at least every 5,000km!

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you sure thats correct? according to API's website each newer category includes the performance properties of all previous categories. They list SH and earlier as being obsolete, and SL as being suitable for "all automotive engines presently in use".

Not sure if he said 'do not', but he said you're wasting your money if you buy anything higher than SG.

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ok - that makes more sense. So basically older technology oil is likely to be cheaper and if it suits the application then it will be fine.
I just think that since oil technology has improved so much over the last 26 years since the SE category was introduced that while its not necessary to use newer categories, they should give better protection against wear

Geoff

Valid point, but hard to say when you factor in the gearbox. The formula R is quite a proven oil for minis, which is an SG rating, so it seems to be a good choice

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I can't prove it (because they wear first, anyway) but I've been told that in Minis, the later oils with their higher detergent levels give accelerated wear of the gearbox layshaft and its needle bearings...

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

yeh thats what poeee and i were told. im sure the additives in the newer oils would be fine in an older technology normal engine, but are possibly not too good for the Mini gear box.

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