Hello again!
It's been a few months since I changed the oil in my T-bird and I drove it a few thousand miles lately, so maybe it's not a bad idea to change oil before winter. Remember my strange engine noise problem? I forgot to mention, but it went away after a week or so, I guess and hope it was simply a lifter.
I was just wondering what viscosity oils are you using in your 3.8 T-birds? 5W30, 5W40, 10W30, 10W40 or maybe a 10W60?
What's the factory recommended viscosity? What do you recommend?
Take care and drive safe!
i run 10W30
I always ran 10W-30 in my '86 3.8.
I also run 10W-30 in my turbo 2.3, but it's full synthetic.
I run 10-40
I have always run
0W30 in winter
5W30 in summer
except for my truck which is
15W40 summer
10W30 winter
but because of that thick winter oil it will not start when it cold out, but its the thinnest oil recomended in that case.
All dino (non synthetic) oil.
I don't know what the climate is like in your region of poland, but unless you get below -20* C I would think that 10W30 or 10W40 would be fine.
10W30 year round in everything cept my '88TC which gets 10W40 Royal Purple.
a few diffrent types :D
:grinno: just kidding 10w-40.. if it gets real cold there you might want to go 10w-30 in the winter in a 3.8L
Dunno bout you 3.8 guys but i'm running a 5w40 full synthetic in winter no problems so far. I normally use 20w50 in the summer.
On My fresh rebuilted 3.8 carbed, I'll run on a 10w30 full synthetic, I don't drive this car in the winter...
Before rebuilt the engine, in the summer 2005 was a 20w50 castrol XLR/GTX...
My winter truck 300ci/4.9liter 10w30 Castrol 10w30, and for summer 20w50.
Dom. :birdsmily:
10W30 summer and regularily 5W30 for winter though i'm going to try 0W30 this winter.
Always synthetic
Scott
I ran 15w40 in the summer and 10w30 in the winter, synthetic as well.
I wouldn't break in any engine with synthetic oil. :dunce:
Normally I rum Castrol GTX 10W30 but I just put in some 10W40 to see if that quiets my valvetrain a little. I'm not really worried about extracting every fraction of a HP.
I'd like to add that Castrol GTX is excellent oil though. After 6 years and about 70,000 miles when I took apart my 87 there was no sludge and the lifter valley actually looked relatively clean. I was shocked because I only changed my oil about every 8 to 12K miles.
These cars call for 30 or 40 weight oil that’s what the manufacture calls for if you run thinker like a 50 weight you could be starving certain engine parts and in time you will have problems the only reason you should run 50 weight oil is if your engine was rebuilt and the engine builder stated he build it for it. As for the 1st # 0W, 5W, 10W you can do what you want I recommend a low # in colder climates for easy start ups on your valve-train.
i run 10w30 synthetic year round. Speaking of advance auto has some brands of oil buy one get one free ;)
5w30 usually,but when i can i run 5w50(usually doesn't go on sale to much though)synthetic.
10W30 all year. I run syntha-blend for now because of the mileage on the car. When I get the new engine in the spring it'll be regular 10W30 for the break-in and Mobile 1 10W30 synthetic after that.
Thanks for all your replies! I'm using regular 5W30 sold by Ford here and chaning it twice a year. Maybe I should use 10W30 in the Summer, but I have a small problem. I can't get 10W30 in Europe! We have lot's of synthetic oils like 0W30 to 5W50... but no regular 10W30 :( I'll check at local Valvoline dealer, maybe I can order it.
I was asking becouse I wasn't sure if I'm not doing any harm running on 5W30.
Thanks!