Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Rick]

A Cooper S being driven in anger, in this old Duckham's ad.



RJ
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[Da Tow'd]

That driver can't be that angry there isn't any rubber smoke
cheers
Hank

[Ray White]

Back in the 1960s My Dad used to service a mini Cooper S. It was about the only car that would put a smile on his face!

BTW we used Duckhams 20/50 all the time.
It was also, I remember, our telephone number Woking 2050.

Funny how some things stay with you.

[Keith D]

I wouldn't have thought that 1 pint of oil in 267 miles was anything to boast about. I used Duckhams Q20-50 back in the sixties to reduce oil consumption!

Keith

[Ashley]

All the BMC cars used lots of oil in those days. The road test of the 1967 Healey 3000 mentions about 40 mpp and friends who had Mini Coopers and S models rarely got 100mpp. I reckon it was the seventies before the problems with oil control were resolved.

[Ray White]

[Ashley]

Healeys didn't have stem seals, but they did have five Piston rings and still consumed oil. Mine uses almost none now with modern oil control rings.

[V8 Nutter]

I worked at an engine reconditioners years ago, we sold Gold Seal engines for a short time, in the paper work from British Leyland it said 200 mile per pint was acceptable. Gold seal engines proved to be so bad we stopped selling them after about 6 months. Someone who had done an apprenticeship at Austins back in the 1930's told me they knew about the problem then. It was caused by the casting technique and material they used for the cylinder blocks, but they never bothered to do anything about it. We found by fitting a set of liners it solved the problem, but most customers did not want to go to that expense

[Keith D]

There seems to be a lot of urban myths at work here.

My father bought a new mark two Consul in late 1956 and kept that car for about fourteen years, finally importing it into Australia and that certainly never needed any oil between changes.

I owned a number of Hillmans Minx's (side and OHV versions) and most were high mileage but none of them used oil to any degree. The use of Duckhams Q20-50 helped reduce consumption. A car burning a pint of oil every 100-150 miles would have been laying a blue carpet behind it and would be considered ready for reconditioning. (even in the sixties!) Our local village constabulary at the time were quick to pull us kids over if our old cars were blowing blue smoke!

A motor engineer friend of mine comments that the big change in the seventies was that of using softer material for the rings. The big change was not oil consumption, but the increase in distances between rebores.

I find V8 Nutter's comments regarding the problems that BMC had with their casting techniques and material that they used for the cylinder blocks quite amazing. I have been using those very same BMC engine blocks without any liners in them for the last forty or so years and these engines burn no oil at all between changes.

Keith

[Ashley]

Having just completely rebuilt a Healey 3000 engine I'd say the castings are absolutely superb if huge and heavy, it's a lovely strong engine, but in the day, oil consumption was always an issue and 100 mpp typical. Coopers too and for that matter Jaguars. A friend with a garage was always replacing piston rings, usually with Wellworthy oil control ones.

I think theres a big difference between the UK and Oz in the type of usage the engines got. Here, distances are short with lots of stop start motoring, all of which wears rings and bores. I've heard that in Oz, cars did far greater mileages and gave less trouble than at home. I also think they were more fastidious with maintenance.

[Ray White]

I think there is also a difference between here and Oz in that we have to use the choke a lot more. Low ambient temperatures also mean it takes longer for our engines to warm up properly.

[Rick]

A 1930 ad for the rarely-heard-of Hampton Six.



RJ
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[Penman]

Hi
There is a book about the Hampton, called the Story of Hampton Cars by Trevor Picken

This is part of the cover and the author with one of the cars.



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Bristols should always come in pairs.

Any 2 from:-
Straight 6
V8 V10

[Rick]

Also from 1930, an ad for the Singer Light Six.



RJ
_________________
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[V8 Nutter]

When I started working at the engine shop in 1975, from memory we were rebuilding about 10 to 15 B.M.C. engines a week. A series B series and Maxi's were the most common they would often come in with as little as 40000 miles on the clock burning oil. We found that after re-boring, plateau honing with cork honing sticks helped the problem, but on several occasions I found blow holes in the bores, the engines had been built like that. That was usually on 1275 Mini's and 1300's