1959 edsel oil question!!!!

heavy oil will help the last thing you want to do is clean out an old engine.i remember driving a 59 ford with a 361 edsel motor i stopped for gas and asked for a can of stp which i used in those days and i let the guy talk me into putting something in that was the latest.would make my engine run great and clean it.when i pulled in for gas 200 miles down the road on came the oil light it was down 2 quarts.never got over 200 miles to quart again.
 
You didn't mention how long the car has sat. Mine sat for several years and smoked similar to what you said when I first bought it. But after a couple thousand miles and couple oil changes, it has stopped smoking 90% and runs a lot better. I have also gotten a good bit of crud out of the engine as evidenced by cutting the oil filter open. Scary stuff inside. They don't like to sit.
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As far as I know the gut I bought it off of said he drove it weekends to shows and around town so how true that is I don't know
 
5859edsel said:
Oh wow I hope I didn't hurt the engine I only put maybe 40 miles on it since changing the oil
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If it was 40 miles with no oil that would be bad, 40 miles with fresh oil shouldn't have done anything except dislodging some crud.
For the oil change this weekend I'd be inclined to go with 40w (or 30w) oil.
The weather isn't gonna be cold anytime soon and the thicker oil will help cut down on smoke until the engine hopefully starts settling down. You could wait on the fancier multi-grade oil for the next oil change, before winter. It might save you a couple bucks too.

Which engine does the car have? 223, 292, 332 or 361
If you feel inclined to pull off the valve covers to make sure the rocker arms are getting oil it isn't a bad idea.

http://www.edsel.com/pages/edsel59.htm#Engines

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I took the pan off a SBC last year, the amount of crud in the pan was amazing. Grit, gasket material and even a broken drill bit. But it did run well and had no oil issues.

Old cars that sit and have had infrequent oil changes have stuck rings, clogged oil passages and so on. On the 332, 352 and on up engines, these are prone to sludge under the valve covers and the oil pools up instead of running down.

The price of a couple of gaskets will give you a better idea of the engine condition.
 
Diesel rated oils are much higher in detergent and not recommended for gasoline engines. The higher amounts of detergent in the diesel oil can also promote detonation in those gasoline engines that are borderline on the compression ratio. The main thing you'll see wear wise on the gasoline engines with the diesel only oil versus gasoline rated oil will be in the speeding up of rod and main bearing wear. The differences in wear on gasoline engines are very profound when test engines using each are torn down at the 100K marks. Not a biggie if you're only driving these engines 2500 miles per year.

As far as reducing the blow by that's coming out of the road draft tube and/or the oil fill breather, a PCV valve system could help there. Performing a cranking compression test and/or a leak down test can help to quantify the condition of the piston rings but even with some wear on those, a PCV valve properly sized and installed is expected to help.
 
I had a '64 Ford with a 352 that was largely shot, mostly burned oil out the exhaust and some out of the breather. Took the valve covers off, removed some sludge that blocked the oil running back at the ends of the heads.

Switched to 50 WT Wolfs Head Racing Oil, added a can of good old CD2 and the oil burning dropped quite a bit.
 
Ok all very good info I appreciate it I will be changing oil one day this week and I guess I'll take valve covers off and check them while I'm at it
 
You can't trust that oil will have ZDDP just because it's diesel rated. Rotella was reformulated a couple years back and does not have any or enough. Ford's own label, available at Mal-Wart is reported to still have acceptable amounts. A safer bet is to just use the oil you like and a good zinc additive. I have been using Lucas until recently when I found out about the Ford oil. Except buying anything at Mal-Wart makes me cringe.

Type ZDDP into your search and you will have enough info to make your head swim.
 
I'm using Valvoline VR1 10w-30 oil to break in my new engine. High ZDDP as well. But this is racing oil, designed to be dumped after X number of races. I plan on doing 3000 miles a year on my car, maybe a little more so I'm looking at 1 or 2 oil changes a year. I have some 10w-40 Brad Penn for my next oil change.

If you have a Pep Boys around, they may carry the high ZDDP oil.
 
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