Cleaning Wheel Weights Technique

[44 WCF]

A gentlemen in the Black Hills who has cast for decades taught me how to clean wheel weights. Using discarded dutch oven on propane burner and after removing clips and debri, Bring up to 800 deg if you can. Turn off the heat add a large scoop of Crisco. #3 Navy Soup Spoon was his favorite. Stir carefully. Have enough crisco to cover surfaces completely. YOu will have some smoke. Then dump in a cup or so of course ground corn cob. Gerbel litter from Wal Mart is best I found and super cheap. Corn cob will absorb Crisco and any impurity leaving a mirror bright surface. Secret is the stirring and enough crisco to overmcome the surface tension of the molten alloy.
Be sure to turn off the heat. I didn't once. It was march with snow on the ground, nearly dark. Resultant flame light up my drive way and the neighbors back yard. Heat was so intense, had to use a shovel to get the lid on the dutch oven to put out the fire. Wife was hysterical, neighbors dont' let their kids visit anymore.

[imashooter2]

:lol:

[Wayne Smith]

O'course, after that all the kids want to visit and get you to do it again. It's their folks who are baulking!

[robertbank]

With respect I think I'll just heat my wheelweights in a cast iron pot, scoppoff the clips and debris, use a pea size bit of wax to flux and pour into ingots pending use. Not nearly as exciting but just as effective I think. :)

[Willbird]

I have a half case of Quaker State 10w30 that when I changed the oil in my Camaro the engine blew up within 10 miles, I'm sure it was the 150,000 miles and not the oil, BUT I aint using that stuff in the engine that replaced it, or any other one about the place, so I use around a 1/4 cup of it to flux my WW after I dig the clips out, if you wait 10 minutes after the fire goes out it makes a nice fluffy crust that takes all the nasty dross with it when skimmed off.


Bill

[StarMetal]

Willbird

So what oil you going to use now? I've been building engines for like 35 yrs or more and especially chevy smallblocks. I've also worked at one of the major oil refineries in the U.S.. I've learned alot about engines and oil and I'm not going to start a pissing contest over them. Just curious as to what you THINK is good oil for your new engine.

Joe

[Willbird]

Well Star, I would go grab any other bottle of quaker state right off the shelf and use it just fine. But that particular case is quarantined hehe. I just cannot bring myself to put any of the oil from THAT case into another engine.

Currently we use Shell Rotella 15-40 in the Camaro (95 roller cam 350 with some refinements) , the 91 S-10 4cyl with 150,000, and the 65 grand prix v6 with 150,000

I run shell Rotella 30 weight in the cratsman lawn mower.

Bro in law got me onto the Rotella, he bought it for the semi and eventually started using it in everything, I followed suit after he ran it a couple years and nothing blew up. I buy (6) gallons at a time in a case at sams club.

I would switch oils to any other good name brand I just prefer to not use a differant brand every oil change.

I prefer Wix filters. That after reading an article that compared filter quality and showed that some of the old names we all used to use are not as good as they used to be.

Bill

[felix]

Looks like you got some good advice, using that Rotella 15-40. It is a "SL" grade oil but without the gas milage slickies like the Quaker has. It seems the added viscosity of the Rotella is what the newer aluminum engines like for longevity, including the small degrade in milage. As for flux, just use the Rotella 30 weight you use for the lawnmower. Adding carbon, or something that burns into carbon, to be used as an oil soaker would be OK too. I typically use fireplace ashes, which comes from not completely burnt wood, as a soaker in place of kitty litter. It really does not make any difference. ... felix

[wills]

Is the Rotella not good stuff?

[felix]

Is the Rotella not good stuff?

Just the opposite! Great stuff. ... felix

[Jumptrap]

Motor oil discussions are as emotionally charged as auto brands and i ain't getting into that BS.

But, let me share a story frommany years ago while i was working at the locomotive shop for the railroad that i gave the best 27 years of my life.

At the 'ready track' which is the service pit for engines, there used to a lab and a chemist on duty to analyze the oil in the engines. They never (NEVER) change oil in a railroad locomotive unless it is contaminated or the diesel is going in for heavy repairs (major rebuild). But, they analyze it every time the engine comes to the pit for fuel, sand, brake shoes, etc. If the oil shows high concentrartions of water or bearing material (bronze) or excess fuel, they know what to look for to fix the problem.

One day I asked old George the chemist about motor oils. He was puffing his pipe and said, "yeah, what about'em?". I says who makes the best. He then lapsed into mumbling and told the story of how they brought in samples of every popular beand and analyzed them. he said oil A might have 2% of an additive where Brand B had 1.5%, but brand B may have 2.5% of another where brand A had 1%, but ALL of them were essentially the same. Moral of the story was to buy whatever was on sale and the secret to lengevity was to change it when you felt guilty. I then asked about the oil the RR put in the engines......I had heard it wasn't good for cars. He grinned and said, would you buy a 2 million dollar engine and put inferior oil in it? DUH, NO! Well, they (the RR) doesn't either. The oil is/was Valvoline HD 50wt. I asked would he run it in his car? "Well, I have ran it in everything I own, cars, trucks, tractors, lawnmowers.....everything for nearly 40 years with no complaints." That ended all my speculation about motor oil from that point forward. Chemically, it is all much the same. Therefore it mixes with no problem, an engine is an inanimate object and it doesn't know what is poured in it and the rest is ******** in YOUR head.

For what it is worth, I just put Mobil 1 in my truck and don't plan on changing it for a year.

[StarMetal]

Ok my two cents again for a total so far of four cents. As you all know I worked at a major oil refinery. My major background was chemical plants. So I worked with alot of machinery inaddition to my car hobby. Learn alot about oil. Been doing alot of informal surveys with folks that have high mileage vehicles asking them what their oil chaing habits are and what brand they use. The fellow that told Jumptrap that all oils are basically alike is 100 percent correct. One of the first questions we asked in the oil refinery class was if it was true that Pennyslvania paraffin based oils were better then the non paraffin base. They said in the early days it was, because the kind of additives they have developed today weren't around then. That paraffin base gave the PA state oil an edge. That's no so today, anyone can buy and put additives in their oil.

I few things we do with our car ruins oil. One if overheating it. This breaks it down by changing the molecular structure. You can't really wear oil out, but you can wear the additives out of it that the oil companies put in. Probably the worse thing for oil is driving your car in short hops. The engine doesn't get hot enough to boil the condensation out of the oil and this then turns into a nasty chemical that literally eats out your bearings. Synthedic oil is alot better for short hops as it fights the corrosion better.

Now for weights of oil. We we were young (the hotrodders I grew up) use to go for those high pressure oil pumps when rebuilding an engine. If you were on a budget you could but a stronger relief spring or even stretch the original one in the pump. Well high pressure pumps have their applications, but it's not on a normal street engine. The better pump is the high volume oil pumps. You want oil flow, not necessarily high pressure. So the name of the game today is getting oil flowing to all the places it needs to go in your engine as fast as possible upon start-up. This is one reason for the rather thin weights for current new car requirements today, but not the only one. Ok...mistake number two for me and my hot rod friends.....running heavy weight oil. Actually for us there was another mistake along with that. You see we ran 40 weight racing oil year round in our street hot rods. First mistake is 40 is too heavy and doesn't reach all those important places when it's cold and thick, fast enough. The other mistake is racing oil is different then standard motor oil in that it has different additives. It doesn't have the long duration additives needed for street driving. Racers race and change their oil alot, not every 3000 or 7000 miles. So you fellows aren't doing any good running 10-40 ore 15-40, or 20-50 oils. You think you are, but you're not. Now grant you if you live in a desert climate, yeah, you could use a heavier weight, but if you live in say minnesota, or new york, or tennessee...then no.

The Shell Rotolo is good oil. I also think that Valvoline, Castrol, Kendal, Wolfs Head, Mobil 1, and Royal Purple are too. Little inside secret here. One day at the refinery I went over during slack time to look at the new state of the art canning plant we put in. By the way I worked at Sunoco, and it's also called DX down in the southwest like Oklahoma and Texas. Sundog will recognise the service station name. Anyways we were not only canning our own cans but we were canning for Philips Top Artic (at that time their best oil) Penzoil (yeah the big famous well loved and well thought a top product Penzoil) John Deere tractor oil, Pennys, Kmart, and STP...yeah STP use to sell motor oil but they stopped. So you see, the oil industry is all one big family and they share.

The secret to long engine longevity is taking care of it and changing oil. My neighbor when I lived in Tulsa had a Chevy pickup with a 350 V8 in it with 250,000 miles on it ( I was certainly shocked it went that long even being a Chevy fan)..he used Sunoco exclusively (his brother worked there). A supervisor at the refinery had Buick with some V8 in it and had quite a few 100 thousand miles on it. He used whatever was on sale!!!! and he worked for Sunoco!!!!!

Wix's are good filters. Some folks think they finer too fine, which they do filter out smaller particles then other brands. If you like them, here's a tip....they make all of NAPA filters and you can buy them cheaper at NAPA.. If you don't believe me ask them and also look at the code numbers...NAPA only add a couple numbers to their filter.

One final thing...oils are made for different applications...like for cars with gasoline engines, with diesel engines. for motorcycles, for outboard motor, etc.....sure you can run car oil in your lawnmower, but lawnmower oils is formulated differently, for one thing a car engine and lawnmower engine run at different temperatures.

Joe

[grumble]

I'm curious about synthetic oils and also about filters.

I change oil and filter every 5k miles. Just seems esier to change oil at 45k, 50k, 55k etc than it is to try to keep track of other increments. I use Penzoil because I liked their ads in magazines when I was a kid, and I just never changed. If I switch to synthetic oil, do I need to do anything special, or just change the oil and filter and make the next change at 10k or 15k miles?

Oil filters. There have been several times that I changed oil on a vehicle or tractor and realized I didn't have the right filter. So I just used whatever was available (it's a long drive to town for me) and never noticed any difference. What is the difference (besides the micron count) between filters? Is there a problem with using a filter meant for a 93 Ford on a 2001 Toyota? They fit and don't leak, so why not? How about using an auto filter on my diesel tractor?

Hard to get straight answers on questions like these.

[wills]

What exactally IS synthetic oil?

[StarMetal]

Grumble

I've heard it said if an engine is older with alot of miles on it and it uses just a little oil, that not to use syhthetci in it. There was a wise tale not to break in a new motor with it because of it's superior lubricating qualities that the engine wouldn't wear/break-in right. Chevolet disproved that with their Corvettes...they were putting them out right from the factory with Mobil 1 oil in them. If you use synthetic and keep changing at the short intervals you are now it's going to costs you alot of money and be of no benefit. I'm running it in my wife's car because she makes short hops, but I'm not using it in my truck. For those of you curious I'm using Castrol 10-30 in my truck. If I can't get that I'll use Valvoline.

The difference in filters besides micron filtration size it that for different vehicles and engines a oil filter will have a specific oil pressure relief pressure bypass in the event that it plugs up. Your engines oil system should have that build in too. Of course some threads are different as is the placement of the rubber oil seal ring. I never could get use to the puny filters they use today and I always try to buy the longer filters.

I have a friend in Frankfurt German, that's a big Chevy motorhead in worse way, and he tells me that Mercendes and BMW for just German vehicles now upped their oil change intervals to 110,000 miles and they use synthetic exclusively. I've started to see the intervals get long on some American cars.

If you're changing like say at 5500 just keep using conventional, synthetic costs too much.

Joe

[BruceB]

To ensure you folks know that I'm on-topic here, I flux my wheelweights with whatever clean motor oil I have on hand. I've never noticed a difference among 'em for this purpose.

Here in the desert, where it rarely gets down to zero degrees Fahrenheit, I'm running a "universal" 15-40 oil in all the trucks, mostly because one of 'em is a diesel and the oil is rated (CG/CF) for that as well as the gas engines. No problemo, and it keeps things simple.

When we lived in the Northwest Territories, I did NOT have a garage, and temps regularly got down into the fifty-below-zero area, so it was a demanding environment for vehicles. On arriving home in cold weather, I'd blanket the whole front of the vehicle with a big, insulated construction tarp, big enough that it covered the entire hood and left plenty of material to tuck UNDER the truck, in front of, and behind the front wheels. Doing this allowed reliable starts for up to maybe eight or ten hours after arrival home. Beyond that length of time, it was plug-into-the-generator time (two block heaters, one oil-pan heater, one battery blanket heater.)

Our '88 F250 had a proper oil-pressure gauge. When firing-up a COLD engine, it often took up to 45 seconds for ANY pressure to show on the gauge, and this is not a good thing. That period after the cold start is where the worst of engine wear occurs. After I changed to synthetic oil in the Ford, the gauge showed positive pressure IMMEDIATELY, just as soon as the engine caught and started running, no matter how cold it was. That was enough for me, and I began using the stuff in both trucks.

I see no real need for the synthetic here, but have considered it because I believe it's also more resistant to heat breakdown. Is that correct??? I'd HIGHLY recommend it to folks who live where it gets really cold.

[grumble]

Thanks, Joe! 'Preciate the reply.

I was thinking that if I went to synthetic oil, I'd go to a 15k oil change interval instead of the 5k I use now. That would make the cost about break even. I've never seen anything definitive about the advantages for using synthetic in well broken in engines, but am still curious about it.

Thanks also for the info on the filters. I knew that some filters have bypass valves, but for the "unintended experiments" I've tried, there doesn't seem to be any noticable change in oil pressure, and I change oil before sludge can plug things up. So I guess it shouldn't matter if I use the leftover filters from my Ford on my newer Toyota since they fit just fine.

Thanks again!

[StarMetal]

Bruce

Yes synthetic does have a higher tolerance to heat break down. A little story, one of the big name racers in the Baja desert race was having trouble with his differential burning up do to the oil giving up the ghost. He had about exhausted his ideas when a friend said put synthetic gear oil in it. Well he doubted that would fix it. To his amazement it did, not problems what-so-ever with that rearend do to heat breaking the oil down.

I wanted to say before, but forgot. Chevolet, in their performance Corvette engine, installed a standard oil pump, because they said they wanted to see the oil in the oilpan, not the valve pan covers. What are they saying? Well some performance pumps can pump so much oil so fast that alot of it can literally end up in your valve pan covers before it has a chance to drain down through the block to the oil pan. Another oil problem is the parasitic action of the crankshaft rotation keeping a big glob of oil on it instead of letting it drop to the oil pan. That's why they came up with what they call windage trays, in case any of you wondered. They keep the oil off the crankshaft, which by the way robs alittle horsepower.

I had a 1965 Impala SS convertible with the high performance 409 engine. I remember in the winter, because I was young and dumb then to run heavy oil year round in a winter state, I had to set there and idle from quite some time before I could get going. It would idle at 65 lbs and if I reved it would reach a 100 lbs. Remember, back then normal oil pressure for a Chevy big or small block was like around 45 lbs.

I had friends that were from Minnesota that told me that they drained their oil each winter night and put it in pot on the stove to warm up in the moring so they could start their cars. This was before the advent of blockheaters and such. Bruce knows all about how this oil gets in cold climates.

Joe

[grumble]

Bruce, my dad came up in North Dakota, and had some stories to tell about cold weather, too. He said that some people used just straight kerosene in their old Model Ts and As in the winter. Others would pour about a pint of gasoline in the crankcase so the old straight-weight oil wouldn't get so thick the starter (or crank) couldn't turn the engine over. As the engine heated, the gasoline would boil off and everything would be hunkey-dory until the engine cooled again.

As a kid in Alaska, I remember many parking lots had posts with electrical outlets so you could "plug in" your car if you intended to leave it for several hours. Our family's '51 Chev was really wired up -- block and pan heaters as you mentioned as well as a small fan heater to keep the inside of the car warm enough that sitting on the seats wasn't a painful exercise. <GGG>

Here in the high mountains of New Mexico, we get occasional temps as low as -10 or -20, but nothing on the order of your frequent -40 or -50 temps in the NWT. Bet you aren't unhappy to be away from those temps! I really enjoy your stories about those days in the wilderness (including the wayward priest!).

[StarMetal]

Grumble

I rebuild a 1929 DeSota engine for a friend few years ago. Bored, new pistons and rings, new timing chain and gears, new valves, valve guides, and seats, the cam and lifters were excellent so reused them, and had new rod bearings poured, the mains were fine. Well the damn thing started and run good until it warmed up and just went plumb loco backfiring and all. Tried everything, different known good carbs, different distributors, rebuilt the vacuum fuel pump, etc. One day there was the annual auto show in town. Instead of hanging around the sixties muscle cars I went over and talked to the "old guys" with the old modet "T's" and "A's"...and this one fellow that had an old Franklin. The darn thing had an inline six with aircooled cyclinders. I told him of my story with the DeSota engine. He says "You say you put new valve guides in"? I said "Yup" He said is it backfiring out of the exhaust or back through the carb? I said exhaust. He said ok, the exhaust valve gets hotter then the intake, and it expands more, and is sticking in the new valve guides. He said to pour a quart of kerosene or diesel oil in with every gastank full of gasoline. It will lubricate them until they break in. He said they don't get alot of oil to oil the stems good enough. Well I did that and the thing run like a top...amazing the uses for keronsene. Someone ought to be writing this stuff down because these old timers aren't going to be around much longer and you never know with the restoration craze today, when you might be building something that old and need all those tips.

My Dad use to wipe his car down with a mixture of kerosene and water after he washed it.

Oh, almost forgot, my flux for my pot when I'm outside casting is alloy sawdust shaving mixed with sawdust and ATF oil.

Joe

[grumble]

Oh yeah, flux. This thread is about flux, isn't it...

I use Marvalux for my big batches of melt. Ain't no way I'll ever put that stuff in my casting pot again. I'm a kitty litter guy now, through and through.

[jcork]

For those who are interested in oil, the most complete discussions I have found are at:

Bob Is The Oil Guy (http://theoildrop.server101.com/cgi/ultimatebb.cgi)

LOTS of good info there.

[fecmech]

Grumble--When I was stationed in Newfoundland recip aircraft that came in and planned on staying overnight used oil dilution. Depending on the expected overnight temp they would run the engines for a period of time letting avgas mix with the oil before shutdown as the eng oil was 50wt. On start up as the engine warmed up the avgas evaporated. Love the smell of 115/145 avgas!

[ascast]

this is a fasinating thread -- so I plan to change the oil in my Farmall M, I use it about 20-30 hours a year, or my IH 300 U gets more hours but maybe 200 per year. Will this oil be good for fluxing? If I am understanding this, the multivis synthetics will pump faster and build pressure faster than non-syn? correct? I plow snow with the 300 U and like today it is a little below zero outside. this sound right?

[Rally]

Ascast,
If you read the tech advice on swithing to synthetics from conventional oil, the publications state to first use a Para synthetic oil on your first oil change and then go to full synthetic. You should notice a dramatic change in oil pressure build up in extreme cold temperatures. You will most likely also notice how much easier the engines turn over in extreme cold weather. I live in Northern Mn. and run Mobil 1 in all our vehicles and machines, engines, rear and front differentials, and transfer cases. The only place I don't use synthetics is in wet clutch applications like 4wheelers/quads. Some manufactures advise using them could cause premature wear to some clutch materials.

[Deadpool]

I melt over a propane turkey cooker, and use a scoop of wood ashes as flux. No smoke. Ladle through the ashes, stir.. All the lead comes off the steel clips.

[dikman]

Good grief! I thought I was back on a car forum for a moment there!! A 10 year old thread on what oil to use in a car.........

[mtgrs737]

I buy huge nasty looking and smelling candles at garage sales for fifty cents to a buck. I look for the 3" dia. ones about 12" tall that smell nasty. They weigh about two pounds and the sellers think they are getting to me! Sometimes they will throw in some other smaller candles they feel so bad. :) I have a cabinet shop a couple of miles from me and they gladly let me have all the sawdust I want so I can toss in some of that too. I have a lot of used motor oil available but I don't like all the chemicals in it or even new oil for that matter. I try to keep it simple.

[mtgrs737]

Just to throw in my 2 cents on motor oil. I like and use Mobil 1 but not in my cars anymore due to the cost and the fact that I keep a car until it is junk yard ready. I have yet to have an engine wear out on a computer controlled injected car engine using conventional oil. I do change oil about every 4-5000 miles and I won't use any other brand of filter but a Wix or Napa (Napa has a big sale every April). One place I do like synthetic oils is in my many two cycle engines, as it does not burn and break down like conventional oil does. I laid in a stock of Mobil 1 Racing 2T two cycle oil that should last me a lifetime and it works in all my air cooled engines. One bit of advice I got many years ago from the commercial mowing guys is to not use the lean 50 to 1 ratio's that engine manufacturers recommend but to add a little more oil to the mix. The trend is to use lean ratio's as much as 100 to 1 and that is just dumb as the oil is life's blood of a two cycle engine and I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would run so lean. The only thing I can think of is that they don't want the engine to smoke, if not then buy a four cycle! LOL! Sorry for the rant!