Oil??

[allgearnoidea]

Hey, changing the oil on my 1340, 100 odd bhp straight cut box, thing is it burns a fair bit and to be honest could do with freshen up, but going leave it until the performance drops off. Long story short ive got some duckhams Q 15w40 in the garage is it ok to use ie look after the gearbox ect, as I don’t want to use valvoline R obviously because of cost. Cheers.

[Cooperman]

Personally I never use anything other than a quality 20w50 mineral oil with any Mini engine/box, and especially an expensive straight cut one. On my SC box I will only use valvoline racing 20/50. The SC gears do 'mash-up' the molecules of oil faster than a helical box and it's cheaper to buy decent oil than new gears.

[Spitfire2]

Cooperman said:

Personally I never use anything other than a quality 20w50 mineral oil with any Mini engine/box, and especially an expensive straight cut one. On my SC box I will only use valvoline racing 20/50. The SC gears do 'mash-up' the molecules of oil faster than a helical box and it's cheaper to buy decent oil than new gears.

Valvoline VR1 Racing 20W50 would've been my first recommendation too.

Can bulk buy 4 * 4.5 litre cans on Ebay often for £100.

[DanGT]

If you dont want to spend the money there some almost as good oils. Millers oil is not bad and cost a lot less.

[Cooperman]

I've heard good things about the nPenrite 20/50. I have Castrol Classi 20/50 in my Innocenti, but on my 1310 'S' with the SC box I will ever only nuse Valvoline. I used to use Kendall 20/50, but it's NLA in the UK.
Expensive SC gears require expensive 20/50 oil.