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Hi .
Castrol R .
What is special about it over a normal 20/50 ?
Does a engine need to run on it from new/ freshly rebuilt or can it be used to replace a 20/50 the engine had been running on over time ?
If it must be on it from new/ rebuild would a fresh rebuilt engine that had been run for less than 5 minutes (before the head gasket leaked water) on a 20/50 be ok to go over to the Castrol .
I believe you know about the Castrol Mark ?

David.

Fresh build only, or you could flush it through 3-4 times but that will get expensive!
Castor based oil doesn't mix with mineral oil.

After a rebuild I use halfords Oil its cheap

then run Millers CVT after

I'm a chemist.

Castor oil has the highest film strength of any oil, apart from some synthetic castor oils! their behaviour is similar. It doesn't need any "shyte" with it, like normal oil.

Normal oil has detergents and something called "residual lubricant" which is a compound which is slippery for when the oil film has broken down. IIRC, the smell of valvoline is down to the amount of "weasel piss" in it. Similar to EP80.

Anyway, Castor is the best oil but it needs total respect to be run. It does form waxes and it does form "gack" due to water condensing in the sump. If you just aim to whack some castor in and be done with it, your engine will shit itself in a short time.

Castor is good for cam followers and it's good for mini gears, but you have to keep the water out. I advise (as I am doing) cleaning your engine in petrol, then hot soapy water, then drying it and then washing it with cellulose thinners, then warming it to totally remove the residue. Then you're good to work with castor, then you can think about fitting a sump pressure reducer a la vizard to pull as much of the moisture out. Keep a constant eye on it and give it a regular blast to warm it up and drive out the moisture.

I want my engine to stay as pristine as possible inside, so it's castor AND maintenance for me.

If you just want an average road car to work, then use cheapy 20w50 and change it when it becomes the slightest tainted.

I wouldn't put valvoline weasel piss anywhere near my engine.

Spoken like a chemist, I never realised that "shyte" was a chemistry word

I'm working in geochemistry and mining recently, particularly drilling. The language is pretty exciting. "Stuff" is quite common and a good word. "Sh!t" is the next.

If you ask a driller what they were drilling yesterday, insead of saying "macro-foliated meta-hornfels interlain with quartz veins" you are likely to get "hard brown sh!t with patches of catchy sh!t".

Nothing like field science.

there is nothing like 'trade terms'


ring up minispares north and order a 'goose' and you will get a c-aeg369 lcb injection manifold


why a goose?


simple (he says)

'a 369, my goose drinks wine'

Couldn't agree more with everything that in the shed has said.

I have used "R" in a good few of my engines over the years, it is THE BEST oil available for a Mini, but it needs looking after.

Only run from new, don't try to switch horses mid stream, change it every 1500 miles or so, let it warm up before you drive off, this usually involves allowing an engine to run at tickover for a couple of minutes before you set off first thing in the morning.

Follow these simple rules & you will have years of faultless running, don't follow them & it's worse than standard stuff.

The great bonus is that your car will smell like a 60's racer everywhere it goes & you can give anyone following you for any length of time the shits.

Not the oil for a daily driver, but great for a weekend or track car.

well thats good,

i was recommended it buy the person i just bought my 1071 s motor from. he could not speak higher about the stuff
i was taking to dave ( monkeyjim) about it, and he ended asking you lots, as there is always someone on here that know something.

with in the next few weeks i will be building the motor back up, so i will be using castrol R40.
its not the cheapest oil out there , but sounds like one of the best if used properly.

anyone recommended a good supplier for this sh!t, the cheapest we found in 4L was £35.99 free P&P

just be aware that R40 has some vile chemicals in it and its really not good for your skin, so if you are delicate, or suffer from any type of excma or dermititis then its not really advised that you have anything to do with it.

ive had a horrific allergic reaction to it a good few years ago that wasn't pretty at all

Of course you can get the best of both worlds by putting a pint in your fuel tank! You get the lovely smell without the hassle that's what we used to do to get rid of the stuff we drained out of the racer after every race weekend.........Do Castrol still give the stuff away as sponsorship to small weekend race teams? I seem to remember they tried to phase it out and gave us something called Product 351?

£35.99 isn't a bad price.

This is a little cheaper if your prepared to buy bulk (you'll need more than 4l anyway)
http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.vi ... 0782294493

To be honest I think it's about one of the cheapest of the 'recommended' oils. Millers CTV is over £40, VR1 might be a little cheaper?

I just ordered 2 X 4litres. For £33.31 each , free delivery over £60

This is from nielsons. Best price I have seen.

Dean

Dean wrote:anyone recommended a good supplier for this sh!t, the cheapest we found in 4L was £35.99 free P&P

My experience was always buy from competition motorcycle suppliers, invariably a cheaper source than car competition parts suppliers. If it's still around, Silkolene R40 was usually cheaper than Castrol R40 and just as good. It was Bill Quine (Manx) (ex-Downton) who got me using Silkolene.
However, just before I retired, I had concluded that I was simply no longer happy with a "40 grade" (to use the US term) oil when hot and would have changed to the better modern multigrades for "classic" engines (as opposed to the "new" multigrades sold as if they were the "old" ones but weren't the same spec).

Good point Rich, but in these days of H&S it is not a good idea to smear any engine oils (particularly used ones) on your skin.

As far as price is concerned;

You could always try Millers Oils CB 40 which is the same stuff as Castrol R & a bit less expensive.

http://www.millersoils.co.uk/automotive ... Motorsport

It's pretty much got castor oil in it.

That does make you sh1t and your skin doesn't like it, but it's better than organometallics and other exotic species added to mineral oils.

I have a mate who had a very breathy TVR Vixen which was run on valvoline. It was intolerable. It made your eyes burn and when you swallowed, there was this burning gack running down your throat which tasted like earwax (as I remember from a child).

I haven't got my chemistry books to hand, but I do recall that castor oil was pretty much straight castor oil. I don't think it has detergents or anything with it.

minimans wrote:Of course you can get the best of both worlds by putting a pint in your fuel tank! You get the lovely smell without the hassle that's what we used to do to get rid of the stuff we drained out of the racer after every race weekend.........Do Castrol still give the stuff away as sponsorship to small weekend race teams? I seem to remember they tried to phase it out and gave us something called Product 351?

It what I do, got told by an old boy years ago it helps lubricate the valve train, and when I said how much to add, he said keep adding it and when you see blue smoke stop lol

If its best to use R40 after a rebuild to avoid contamination, what would you use for running in?

Normally I would use a cheapo oil without all the additives for a couple of hundred miles to bed the rings in before switching to the good stuff, but that's mineral with mineral.

You can't go mixing castor with mineral oil.

It's got to be clean and dry, unless you want to be making colloids, waxes and other cloggy aggregations.

In the shed wrote:You can't go mixing castor with mineral oil.

It's got to be clean and dry, unless you want to be making colloids, waxes and other cloggy aggregations.

I agree, so what is best for running in? R40 and hope for the best?