Important Questions

[British Bob]

Hi,

What oil and viscosity should be in my engine?

Engineer thinks the engine might be hydralicing (cant spell sorry) due to wrong oil / viscosity and freezing temps recently. There is now noise coming from engine when running to suggest damaged or grinding componants.

Starter motor is struggling to turn engine over.

How easy should it be to hand turn my engine from the front with say a spanner , bar or rachet.

Cheers

British Bob

See my thread "what the hell is going" on for full history

 

[JHL]

Hi Bob,

Hydraulicing (can't spell it either) is usually refered to when there is water or possibly oil in the cylinders. It will be difficult to turn the engine over by hand but not impossible if you can get something onto the front pulley bolt. Usually to easily turn it over by hand you would need to take out the spark plugs then the engine should turn just using a socket and rachet.

J.

By the way you need to brush up on your Americanisms, when I first joined this site I thought a hood was something attached to your anorak and a trunk could only be seen at the zoo :L

 

[British Bob]

Thanks,

If there was water or oil in the cylinders then there would be smoke or steam out of the exausts?. there isnt ever. car runs real clean.

any idea on the type of oil that should be in there?

BB

 

[1995 RedVette]

I always ran 10W30 in my L98 engines. Castrol GTX was my brand of choice until I bought my 95 and switched to Mobil 1 per GM recomendation.

Brett

 

[British Bob]

Thanks

what viscocity is mobile one mate?

bb

 

[British Bob]

oil choice.

Hi,

Have been reading some old threads,

It seems that when we have such cold weather pretty much all the time in this little place they call England that a thin oil would be best.

So I am gona flush the engine , change the oil filter and chuck some mobil one 5w30 in.

Hope this works and helps to free up the engine a bit.

Seems that I may have put too thicker oil in last time which has turned to a thick paste with all the cold weather that we have had here over the last few months.

What you guys think.

BB

 

[74bigblock]

I don't think your Oil viscosity is the culprit however, I'm also not saying you shouldn't change your oil to 5W30 in the cold. I say this because you are having the issue after the car is hot. Oil is at it's thinnest when it is hot. Therefore, the issue you are having has little to do with your oil in my opinion. If the tempurature is regularly below freezing (0 deg C or 32 deg F) where you live, then I would change the oil to 5W30. Otherwise, 10W30 is just fine. You may want to consider 10W30 in the summer months anyway.


You mentioned you switched your battery from top terminals to side terminals? Which side of the car are the terminals pointing to, the driver or passenger side?

 

[British Bob]

Hi and thanks,

Sorry it was side to top, not top to side.

cheers

BB

 

[Hib Halverson]

Hi,

What oil and viscosity should be in my engine?

Engineer thinks the engine might be hydralicing (cant spell sorry) due to wrong oil / viscosity and freezing temps recently. There is now noise coming from engine when running to suggest damaged or grinding componants.

Starter motor is struggling to turn engine over.

How easy should it be to hand turn my engine from the front with say a spanner , bar or rachet.

Cheers

British Bob

See my thread "what the hell is going" on for full history

Good grief...you Brits!

It's called "hydro-locking", short for hydraulic lock. Drag racers sometimes use the term "hydrauliced or hydraulicing", but that's slang.

You're not going to hydro-lock an engine due to use of the wrong oil. The best results will come from using a 10W30 in your 86.

As for the engine turning-over or turning-over too slowly on start-up, problems there can be wide and varied:
Starter faulty
High resistance in the starter system.
Weak battery
mechanical drag on the engine
excessive compression

I would say that if you have a "..noise coming from engine when running to suggest damaged or grinding componants." combined with the starter's inablility to crank the engine fast enough, you probably have a mechanical problem of some kind. Time for an overhaul, probably.

As for hydro-locking, which usually occurs in street-driven engines due to coolant leaks, you don't have that problem as the engine will run.

 

[British Bob]

Hi and thanks,

I said that there is NO noise coming from the engine to suggest damage. thats why this is all so confusing. Runs like a dream when its moving.

Dont understand whats going on.

The engineer says that

1. There are no shorts or bad earths
2. The starter motor (fitted two days ago) looks fine and tests ok.
3. No power drains on the battery
4. Battery charging fine and kicking out a good force
5. Alternator working and no blown diodes

The battery is stronger than the ac delco that came out of it and was only bought last week.

Yet the starter motor is realy struggling to turn over the engine unless fully charged, and will only sustain a few starts before problem comes back.

The only thing that has been noted as bad is the joins that I made to convert the battery connectors where apparently we are loosing 0.5 - 1 volt on each cable. However the car was running fine up until a week ago using the same situation and slightly thinner and a lot older extention cables with a previous battery.

I realy do not know what to do here. The car has a small oil leak and the oil levels have been low a couple of times recently but I have been carefull and always top up. The engine push starts within about 3 feet and runs fine with no adverse noise or roughness.

HELP!!!!!!!!

BB

 

[JHL]

Bob,

If you have had everything electical checked, did you have the ignition timing checked, it is possible if the timing is off to give these sort of hard start conditions. Worth checking if all else fails.

J.

 

[British Bob]

Hi,

Will suggest it to the engineer,

thank you.

BB

By the way, I keep reading about this purple wire (neutral saftery) and how if that is shorting at the bulk head it causes starting problems similar to mine. The engineer working on my car rules this out. being a 4 + 3 C4 would my car have one of these, a previous thread suggests that it does and no one has given me an answer on this.

 

[tlong]

Can clogged catalytic convertors cause a slow spin at start-up and then run OK? I've seen Austin Powers so many times I have to try to help, baby, yeah!

You can velcro a mat to the rear fascia that says PUSH HERE or maybe call Gordon Killebrew if we can't finger this out. Your engineer (is that a mechanic?) probably needs to be vette specific. That's a tall order in Jolly Old. Keep on posting if only for the entertaining British sayings. We'll gitter done. That's a Southern American saying started by the next President of the U.S. Larry the Cable Guy.

 

[DRTH VTR]

Maybe this is obvious, but worth asking. When you used some kind of adapter or wire to go from side terminal to top, did you use a heavy enough wire?

 

[British Bob]

Hi,

Glad this is so entertaining for you "old chap" any comment is welcome.

BB

 

[British Bob]

Hi,

The mechanic, said that the new cables looked thick enough but the bolted join is not so good , as I say loosing about 0.5 - 1 volt per cable.

BB

 

[tlong]

I feel for you BB. These cars are like beautiful women. Rewarding to associate with but very curious at times. We admire your courage owning one in England.:L

This is the A1 best place to get answers and suggestions. Colonists will always jab you guys! I wasn't kidding about Killebrew if you can't find the problem. He dreams in schematics.


Tally Ho!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[British Bob]

Thanks again.

Mighty spiffing advice , ha ha.

We dont realy talk like this mate, well not all of us any way.

BB

 

[1995 RedVette]

Thanks

what viscocity is mobile one mate?

bb

GM recomends 5w30 Mobil 1, however, through some involved threads and research offered by Hib Halverson, I have switched to 10W30 for my LT1 also. Aside from some technical things that I don't have a firm understanding, the idle oil pressure went up from about 20psi to closer to 30psi and cruise pressure is up 5-10 psi depending on speed. That was evidence enough for me. The engine also has 110,xxx miles on it. I also observe a 8000 mile oil change interval with the Mobil 1 with a filter change at 4000 miles and at 8000 with the oil change. I also use AC Delco PF52 oil filter.

Brett

 

[British Bob]

Hi,

thanks just what I was after. Car is being flushed as we speak and new oil will be in soon.

Hope fully this will free the engine up a little but other replies suggest that it wont solve my problem?

BB