Best Engine oil and Gearbox oil to use?

Hi wondering what the best engine and gearbox oil was to use in a standard 67 beetle.
Castrol GTX 2 for the engine?
and 80w 90 hypoid gearbox oil castrol too?
Thanks.
Also would you recommend a bosh plug or are the denso/ngk plugs better?

The best engine oil to use is clean oil, as frequently as possible. Due to the lack of oil filter, the 3000 mile (5000km) oil change interval is very important. I've previously used Penrite, Castrol GTX2 and various other stuff and haven't noticed any problems. Short of doing a scientific study over a couple of hundred thousand km it's pretty difficult to tell the difference. Some people recommend straight 30 weight oil rather than multigrades, a lot of people are full of praise for the special ACE oils but I don't think it's likely that special expensive oil will be worth the money. The oil is changed so frequently in VW engines that it doesn't really need to be anything super-special in my opinion, it's not like you're doing 20,000km oil changes or anythiing like that.

Gearbox oil is a question which I'm contemplating myself at the moment as I'm going to be doing a gearbox oil change soon. The manuals specify Castrol Hypoy LS I believe, which is still available and described thus:

Castrol Hypoy LS
Mineral based, SAE 90 extreme pressure gear oil designed to cope with the special friction characteristics of limited slip differentials fitted to road going cars

I've also heard of a specific transaxle oil which some recommend, but can't remember the name of it at the moment.

only ACE oil for dubs. 😂

all other oils broke down on me just after a few 100ks Especially castrol 🤪😂

They are obviously designed for liquid cooled engines.

I use Penrite HPR30. I buy it in 20 litre drum, and it suits two of my vehicles. I change at 3000miles for the Beetle. 2.5 litres

The recommended trans oil is Penrite Gear oil 80

Where do you by ACE oil I have never heard of it?

matt berry supplies ace
he's on here so drop him a line he'll help ya out
cheers h

Google search

ACE oil au

made by QPL in Backus mash.

Air Cooled Engine Oil, designed specifically for our air cooled engines.

For the trans, any Hypoid 80W-90 will do the trick, although there is one made by ACE too.

matberry wrote:Air Cooled Engine Oil, designed specifically for our air cooled engines.

This kind of reminds me of how HKS made special engine oils for individual engines and cars, such as Nissan RB-series oil, Toyota 1JZ/2JZ oil, Mitsubishi 4G63 oil and so forth.



Mitsubishi Evo X oil



4G63 oil, which is presumably the same as Evo X oil? This oil goes for roughly $160 per 4 litre tin.

smithy68 wrote:Hi wondering what the best engine and gearbox oil was to use in a standard 67 beetle.

Castrol GTX 2 for the engine?

and 80w 90 hypoid gearbox oil castrol too?

Thanks.

Also would you recommend a bosch plug or are the denso/ngk plugs better?

Hi
I've always used Castrol GTX2 in My beetle engine...
and 80w90 hypoid oil in My transaxle
with a MOLY additive . MOLYBOND - PROMAR etc..

but with this gearbox I filled with EXPENSIVE Castrol Syntax synthetic oil... I don't recommend it as it leaks thru the stud threads etc... not bad leaks , no drips, but always wet with oil... where I never had any problems with normal Hypoid oil.

I use German made BOSCH spark plugs or BERU..

Nippon denso or NGK plugs should be OK too..


I also recommend replacing the points with Pertronix ignition kit...

cheers

Lee

A little common sense is all takes when picking oil ie. don't feed it that homebrand woolies crap but you have to go OTT buying exotic whale oil extracted from albino gorrilla urine either.

ACE is the ducksnuts in oil for vw engines, and if you had a nice built up vw engine I'd use it too, but for a stocko with XXXX miles under its belt may be a bit over kill

My old 1600 from my first bug hasnt been split since I built it over 12 years ago, Ive fed 10psi boost into it and flogged the crap outta that thing all the time only running Castrol GTX in it changed every 3000 miles and it still has perfect oil pressure after 60k

Conversely, a friend ran shell helix in a rebuilt engine and after only 40k the oil light used to flicker at idle


I'm interested in thoughts on tranny oil though, after 9 years I think i need to change mine

We live in the present not the past, a mono grade oil might be alright in 1960's but as the demands are made for the engine's to perform better use a better oil, i have used a good quality multi grade of oil for year's and have had no issues, as for the gearbox i run a redline pure synthetic that is not hydroscopic and has a much greater ability to resist gear tooth contact pressure, all this adds up to a more reliablity on the mechanical side. Oil's have delevoped incredibly over the year's and are suitable to use in our cars, you can phone any of the oil companies and speak to any of there engineer's to find out what is suitable for your aplication.

Brad Penn 20w50 racing
Royal Purple 20w50 racing

Both excellent oils and long time proven

Our air cooled engines need anti wear additives and high concentrations of Zinc and Phosphorus combined to form ZDDP, not additives that prolong oil change intervals.

These two oils use roughly 0.12% - 0.15% Zn & P, it would be interesting to find out about the make up of ACE motor oils as it is a local product.

iI don't even use a mono grade in my brig's and stratton mower.

QPL's website may be hard to find. (I think there's a new one?) Yes they are in Bacchus Marsh.
Anyway their old one is:
http://www.qplubes.com/index.html
The Volks Enthusiasts Club may be the only current distributor of ACE oil for Adelaide (contact: Barry L or Jon K).
The level of Zn in ACE 30 & 40 (& 20) is 0.11%. (There is an "optimum" level for Zn & P, ie. too much of anything can degrade other properties.)

seems they have done their research on what's required to run in aircooled engines, min 0.11% Zn content.

Anyone have any updates on where I can purchase this oil in NSW or Sydney or do I have to get it freighted? Also whats are the rough costs, may be better to order a few bottles as save on multiple freights

I have been using HPR15 too thin?

kaiisons wrote:I have been using HPR15 too thin?

no problem at all , personally i use HPR 15 in winter and HPR30 in the hotter months. I did the same when i was using ACE , 30 in Winter and 40 in summer. Keeps my 2276 happy.

Hi

I only use Nulon and whatever they recommend for the cars in my family
03 STI bug
1904 cc bug
02 Prado 3.4litre
RB30+T Skyline
LS400 Lexus

Never had an issue.

Actually a true story, we bought low k R31 Nissan Pinatra a few years ago, changed the filters and all fluids with Nulon when we got it, after a few months the oil light was coming on (son told me checked the oil level) so I decided to change the oil and filter again thinking a bit of crud might be in the engine as it hadn't been driven very much by the po.

When I dropped the oil what came out hardly covered the oil drain container, so about 500ml, so I checked the dipstick, it still read 1/2 full, then I had a better look, the rubber stop on the dipstick had slipped up giving a false reading

So this motor was run without hardly any oil and survived.

Steve

I like Nulon oils............interesting story BTW

I always used to use Pennzoil SAE30 and SAE50. They always worked brilliantly, the SAE50 sounds like thick goop, but when you're running a tweaked ACVW in mid-40s all day on the highway I found the film thickness ended up doing the job well, the SAE30 didn't give the oil pressure I needed.

I also went to Redline 20W40, that stuff is just amazing, really really trick, but hideously expensive and difficult to find, so back to Pennzoil dino I went. I don't even know if Pennzoil is available any more though, so was interested in what worked and was readily available now.

Oh yeah, and although new modern oils are just the ducks guts for protection of components, running slippery stuff 0W20 in an older single-relief case that has stock OEM clearances in it is just asking to have to paint over the oil warning light just to get down to the shops. In a single-relief case the oil cooling and oil pressure is reliant on a SAE oil getting thinner as it gets hotter, so new wonderful thin synthetics will normally cause issues..........but since it falls out of every damn weeping porous VW casting it can find, it might not be in there long enough to matter much! 😏
Save that stuff to use in the just-rebuilt engine using components and clearances that are put together to use it effectively.

Can anyone recommend an off the shelf oil for a new motor with good clearances that dissipates an air-cooled engines heat better or as well as Motul 300V 15W40? I can get that stuff easily, 20L drum in the shed for my bikes, but it's still $18/L, a cheaper alternative would be nice.

Is there any oils that supercede the requirement for zinc content?

Is the required presence for zinc content just 'old form' and no longer required?

1303Steve wrote:Actually a true story, we bought low k R31 Nissan Pinatra a few years ago, changed the filters and all fluids with Nulon when we got it, after a few months the oil light was coming on (son told me checked the oil level) so I decided to change the oil and filter again thinking a bit of crud might be in the engine as it hadn't been driven very much by the po.

So after a few months it burned 4lt of oil ?

It probably wasn't at the right level to start off with

always look for the zinc content in all the oils you use if the engine runs a flat tappet cam, that is whats important.

bajachris88 wrote:Is there any oils that supercede the requirement for zinc content?

Is the required presence for zinc content just 'old form' and no longer required?

From what I've read Chris..

normal mineral oils still need the zinc and phosphorus in them..
to lubricate the camshaft mainly.. in a VW..

Now the Zinc and Phosphorus is being reduced so it won't damage catalytic converters..

Oils are changing as Castrol who had GTX and GTX2 and maybe a GTX3 ? now have just GTX in different colored containers..
the dates of the cars to be used on has changed...
the new 20w/50 GTX exceeds API SL
and its had that on it for a few years.. so, Maybe You are correct...
as We don't know what is different from say an SH or SJ oil to an SL...

they are still saying it exceeds the SL Rating even with lowered Zinc and Phosphorus levels..
Maybe the SL rating is OK for camshaft wear ???
maybe different additives are used???

Lee

Penrite HPR30 for me.
Won't touch Castrol for any reason.
I have seen it fail to perform too often over the years to bother with it.
Oh, and Fusch was cr@p, too. (but that was a while ago)

yeah the HPR30 does have good zinc for what it is.

here is mine UOA of HPR10 ?
http://www.roktex.com.au/sharedReport?published=528804

and also to interestingly mobile1 at least in Australia have good formulation.

UOA of someone I know. mobile 1 5w30

http://pcmhacking.net/forums/download/file.php?id=5496

Were i worked had 13 camshaft failures on caterpillat 3516 deisel engines, all down to castrol oil. i still use HPR30 all the time, when running in a engine i use half a bottle of zinc additive to the penrite running in oil.

I have had good results using this

http://ulx110.com.au/about.html

vwo60 wrote:Were i worked had 13 camshaft failures on caterpillat 3516 deisel engines, all down to castrol oil. i still use HPR30 all the time, when running in a engine i use half a bottle of zinc additive to the penrite running in oil.

I assume that would have been a diesel oil too? thus castrol diesel oil inadequate i take it?

Yes, it was a mineral based deisel oil, bean counter got involved and replace a mobil synthetic oil with the crap castol oil because of the cost of the synthetic, about half the cost, in between oil changes it required so much make up oil it actually cost more overall than the synthetic that it replaced , thats how much oil they used, plus the cost of the downtime and parts to repair 13 engines, camshafts , followers, gasket sets and labour, all the engines i deal with , recipricating and gas turbines run at work loads that no car engine will ever achive with the PLC's set to 103 %, do not scrimp on the cost of oil, it is the cheapest part of your engine, if you realy think your oil is no good the only way to determine that is to have it analyzed, all oil aboard the facility i work on is changed by the resalts of that analyisis.

Penrite have an oil called Light Classic with extra Zinc. Anyone use it?

I use the Penrite Classic Light in my engine; doesn't seem to be an issue at all albeit I haven't put many k's on the engine but given it a few long blasts at sustained speeds and nothing to report.

I don't have any evidence based feedback but it is a better suited product than HPR30 and HPR30 has performed well in others engines.

havn't seen that one.

Im using penrite 10 tenths race oil atm in one of other cars. Has something like 1700 ppm zinc. Class 5 synthetic esters.

Will be keen to get a sample tested later in the year to check on wear metals.

How about air-cooled Porsche flavoured oil?

http://www.autoblog.com/2014/06/17/porsche-classic-motor-oil-official/

Great looking can... great marketing?

Zayus

Personally I've never had a problem with boggo Castrol 20W50, altho I do add a zinc additive these days to make sure the internals don't get eaten. Something to do with older engines needing a higher zinc content oil than what modern engines need as the high zinc oils kill cat converters or something like that. Been A while since I read up about that stuff.

Anyhow, both my haynes and gregory manuals say 90 grade oil for the gearbox and there is debate that it requires an older gni or gli grade as the latest blends can attack any bronze in the box.

Loads of talk about this kinda stuff on The Samba and Volkszone if you fancy it.

Nulon 25w60 high in zzdp is what im using awesome oil

VW Gearbox oil MUST be Hypoid oil for the Differential... 90 grade was the original grade..
Hypoid oil should be drained from any aircooled VW gearbox as this oil does eat away at the copper/bronze bushes... if the gearbox is being stored.
I fill them up with engine oil when storing gearboxes.

This information came from VW of America manuals.. as many Cars are stored over winter in the USA.... due to the salt and chemicals added to the icy roads there.. it was suggested to refill the gearbox with a non hypoid oil while the car is stored --

I have been using Castrol GTX 2 engine oil but Castrol along with most oil companies, dropped the Zinc and phosphorus content a few years ago.
[they also stopped making GTX2] only GTX now

I haven't been driving My beetle much due to the High Summer temperatures.. but its cooling down now... and I have been using castrol GTX oil... so will have to look for a replacement oil with the recommended zinc and phosphorus content.. The Nulon 25w/60 looks good apart from the 60 grade..??

Lee

I got told Penrite 20W50 was the way to go.. 👍??

vwo60 wrote:you can phone any of the oil companies and speak to any of there engineer's to find out what is suitable for your aplication.

What would they know? I'd rather ask on a forum!

I asked Mobil lubrication engineers about the GL4/GL5 gearbox oil and they recomended not to use GL5 in VW gearboxes as it corrodes the bronze synchros. They worked with the Porsche Cup cars and use GL4 on them.

every one should this http://www.nulon.com.au/course/ should help you through those simple questions that most people struggle with

And get 500 different answers.