LUBRICATION AND OIL
| One of the most important things of maintaining a vintage vehicle is to keep it lubricated and check/change oil regulary.
Because
most trucks won't be used much and most of time resides in the garage
or workshop the seals are more likely to (partly) dry out and cause
small leaks.
Also the lubrication of the connections for the drive
shafts, brake parts and steering system mustbe checked regulary and
lubricated because of the amounts of dust that end to settle there.
Lubrication is best done with multi purpose EP2 grease.
What type of oil?
Engine.
As the C8 is not a modern engine you cannot use the modern engine oils as sold at your local shop.
Modern oils are much thinner and contain detergents that can damage the engine, bearings and seals.
There
are special "Vintage" oils for sale that are ,made to the old
specifications and are full mineral oils but with modern (softer)
dopes to maintain the engine.
These additives protect, rather than damage yellow metals and old seals that are often made from paper or even felt.
For the engine the handbook recommends 30 HD oil, which translates in a modern 20W50 oil.
There
are different manufactures that make excellent oils, but my
recommendation is to choose for oils from Rye Oild Ltd or Millers
Classic Oils Ltd.
For those on the continent, Kroon Olie has a very nice classics line.
Gearboxes and axles,
For the gearbox some attention is needed as there are yellow metal parts in there that need protection.
Do not use any modern gear oils in here as they will damage those parts.
The maintanance book says to use C600 oil, which roughly translates in a modern SAE90 oil.
Some
debate recently between owners on the Facebook Morris C8 Support group
about which oil to use made me change to SAE140 oil which made (to my
opinion) the switching smoother and less noise from the gearbox, choose
for the Millers Classic Gear Oil EP140 4GL but there are more goods
oils on the narket as long as you look for classic oils.
My
recommendation is to choose for oils from Rye Oild Ltd or Millers
Classic Oils Ltd, for those on the continent, Kroon Olie has a very
nice classics line.
Swivels.
The swivels on the front axle are the parts that are part of the steering installation.
The
seals that go around the balls are known to leak as they are mostly
over 70 years old and are never replaced as replacements are not there.
To minimize leaking you might concider putting SAE250 oil in the swivels as the Tracta joint needs to stay lubricated.
Penrite makes a very good SAE250 oil for veteran cars that does the trick.
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