kishy's 1985 Country Squire

[GM_Guy]

What weight synthetic are you using? Back to my box days, if I ran anything 5w-xx it would eat oil on the highway. 10w-xx would never need any top up.

[DerekTheGreat]

Hmm, the stuff I've read about multi-viscosity oils has an issue with that statement. Trouble being the second number is the oil's hot viscosity whereas the "W" noted viscosity denotes how the oil behaves when cold, so in theory I don't see how a 5w would be any different from a 10w once both are at operating temperature.

[GM_Guy]

Thats the textbook explanation. Personal experience tells me different.

[sly]

+1 5W seems to get past more seals than 10W.

[gadget73]

the recommended oil weight on these is 10w30 per the owner's manual for most temperature ranges anyway.

[kishy]

+1, I experimented with 5W30 in the 91 way-back-when, and found it absolutely drank it in both warm and hot seasons. On paper it shouldn't have happened but in reality it did.

Of course, that car was in the beginning stages of starting to drink oil in general, but each time I did 5W30 it drank it, and when I returned to 10W30, it calmed back down.

I've had to put a pause on car stuff for the last few days. I've been window-shopping for a new piece of property for a few years now, but with the market locally being a little crazy, no options have presented themselves that met my price limit (I stubbornly, perhaps wisely, refuse to go to the limits of what the financial people say I can afford, and am trying to mortgage about half of that amount). However, last week a new listing arrived in my email from the saved search my realtor set up, without any photos yet at the time, in my price range, and according to Google Street View, it would be an appropriate property.

I booked a showing. The photos were uploaded in the meantime, and both my realtor and I agreed it would probably go out of my price range by a lot. Nonetheless, we went to see it, and I knew pretty quickly it was the right place. Maybe not a forever spot, but at least the next chapter of my life, 10 years or more assuming no changes to my career and employment. I submitted an offer for about a third of the way between the asking price and the price I'd figured it would sell for, with my offer being conditional on sale of my house, and to my astonishment they accepted it. I definitely wonder how much lower I could have gone now, but the local market has been such that you need to be a bit of a foolish bully to make anything happen lately, and a conditional offer is less appealing so I figured I should round up a little for that - just as long as nobody comes along with an offer they like better in the meantime, it should all work out.

So I'm rushing around putting excess clutter into the trash or storage as appropriate, trying to get to the point where 1) the listing photos won't make me look like a total slob and 2) when moving day comes, it'll be that much less remaining. Photos are being taken tomorrow, and it should be up for sale shortly after. There is a long list of considerations of why I want to be out of my current property (specifically a drive to leave rather than just a desire for something else), and those considerations make this a "handyman special" which will be sold "as-is, where-is", so my target market is narrow, but comparables have sold around the number I need to get for it, so I'm optimistic it will work out.

Not a story you necessarily asked for, but that's what's up for me at the present time.

[DerekTheGreat]

+1 for the fire that says buy about half of what you can afford at the maximum. Everyone told me to buy at the limit of what I could afford and seeing how things turned out, I'm very glad I didn't follow their advice.

Hmm, I guess I'll try 10W in the Lincoln. It's always never munched oil right after a change, but always has consumed oil as it ages, no smoke.

[friskyfrankie]

When it comes to cars, I always go with factory specs unless they produce a negative result. Not doing so indicates I know more than the auto engineers and at least in my case, I don't.

[GM_Guy]

Congrats on (hopefully) the new place Kishy! I assume more room for parking cars without having a neighbours window right in your buisness.

[gadget73]

People who make money off of what you will pay always encourage you to spend too much. Doesn't matter to them if its not sustainable, they got paid. A lot of people have seriously f'd themselves up financially by doing that kind of thing.

Anyway congrats on the new digs. What sort of car storage situation comes with it ?

[kishy]

Current property:
1-storey, 2-bedroom, 1-bathroom sitting on a fully below-grade crawlspace on a low-lying 45-foot-wide lot.
All mechanical systems of the house are dated and showing signs of impending problems.
Guesstimating 100 feet of driveway, mostly gravel, double-wide for the most part.
Extra-oversized 2.5 car block garage would easily be 3, maybe 3.5 car with same square footage shaped a little differently. It's 1.5 Panthers deep by 2.5 Panthers wide (allowing door opening space or toolboxes, but not both) plus a store room at the back.
Garage has gas heat, single-car garage door, one man door, 3 windows, high volume exhaust fan, 30 amp electricity.
2 car carport off the front of the garage.
The house is not adequate for my long term wants, and isn't realistically able to be renovated into what I want.
The garage is a good basis for what I want in a garage, but if the house isn't right, it doesn't matter what I do out there.
No real street parking to speak of, I live on a somewhat narrow street with ditches and no curbs.
Located on a through-street heavily used to get between two major arteries.



Prospective new property:
1.5-storey, 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom sitting on a mostly above grade, 75% finished basement, on a 70-foot-wide lot that is well above street height.
All mechanical systems of the house are fully modernized and in good working order.
Guesstimating 75 feet of driveway, mostly concrete, single wide to a front fence, beyond which it's about 4-wide.
2.5 car wood frame garage which started life as a reasonably-sized 1-car garage, added onto. It is one car deep, no store room, but there is room for a work bench and toolboxes.
Garage has gas heat, two air conditioner provisions in the walls, two single-car garage doors with power openers, two man doors, 60 amp electricity.
No outdoor covered parking at this time.
The house hits all my required checkboxes very well, and it's move-in ready. It helps that I love the finishes the last guy used so there are only really two rooms I'm considering painting.
The garage is a step down from where I am now, but a wood frame building is easier to add onto than the block building, and even if it comes to the point of fully demolishing the garage to start over one day, at least I'll be in a house that I'm comfortable and happy in.
There is plenty of explicitly allowed street parking.
It is located on a dead end street.

I offered to buy the new place conditional on sale of my current property. The seller accepted.
The first day my current place was listed, I received a great offer conditional on their mortgage being approved, and I accepted it.
It's all hinging on their mortgage approval which, anecdotally, sounds like it's just about done but we don't have signed papers yet.
In the meantime, both the prospective property and my current one remain on the market, in case any better or non-conditional offers are made.
So I could very much still lose the prospective property, but I'm hopeful that I won't.

The new place does not afford me any space for anything additional to what I already have. It does, however, better meet the needs for what I do already have, in the sense that vehicles will be behind my own fencing, and less car jockeying should be required to get access to a parked vehicle.

[Mainemantom]

Upgrading to a better house is good. Garage and driveway spaces in a city environment seems to never be enough.
Hope everything goes well with the sales.

[kishy]

Much appreciated.

No updates on the property business at this time.

Today, I changed the oil on the wagon. Out came the quickly-disappearing full synthetic 10W30, in went the high mileage 10W30, along with the first snake oil to try, STP Oil Treatment. This ended up being a 5751km change interval.

I finally had to give in and use an oversized drain plug on the front drain hole. That one has felt awful to thread in and out the whole time I've had the car, and I'm already on the second drain plug for it which is looking totally ruined with stretched threads because of how little engagement is happening with the threads in the pan. I used the smallest of the oversize options and it threaded in beautifully by hand, and tightened down very nicely. The oil pan has managed to avoid replacement, for now.

I will monitor for oil loss and make determinations of future actions accordingly. Pulling the heads isn't that big of a job, so the valve guides and seals are a pretty doable thing, but the "might as wells" will get you every time. If the heads are coming off the block, why wouldn't I just go the rest of the way and refresh the block as well? And if I'm doing all that, why stay stock when better is the same amount of work?

I think I like this enough as it is that my goal is strictly to keep it usable in its current form, at this point, and that means it keeps the well-behaved CFI, which means it remains stock.

[DerekTheGreat]

Congrats on the new digs. If there's no crosshatch left on the cylinder bores, redoing the heads won't net much besides spent labor & time.

[kishy]

Congrats on the new digs. If there's no crosshatch left on the cylinder bores, redoing the heads won't net much besides spent labor & time.

The only gotcha with the crosshatching is that it makes great compression and my engine guy doesn't think it needs that type of attention at this time because of the compression numbers. Further, just because I didn't see the crosshatching on an abysmal-quality camera doesn't mean it isn't there.

He is, on the other hand, absolutely adamant that the valve seals and guides must be changed and are almost certainly the majority source of the oil consumption. Something about 302s before a certain year using a really ineffective design of valve seal. Umbrella seals?