Does anyone remember ARCO Graphite Oil? (Motor Oil)
This oil was real popular in the 70's, then it seemed to just vanish. What ever happened to it?
Did you use it? If you did, what was your opinion of it?
Although it cost a little more that plain oil, I bought it, since it was supposed to be a superior lubricant. I never had any problems with it, and I was using it on some high milage old cars that lasted almost forever. So, I was pleased with it.
But all of a sudden it just disappeared from the store shelves and I have not seen it sold in years.
Wasn't old enough to remember advertisements for that product back then. But synthetic oil costs more per quart than regular, and it's stuck around, so apparently it wasn't just price that led to 'graphite's demise.
Right or wrong, I've always believed that changing oil at the proper service intervals and using an oil with the proper API service rating was all that mattered. The rest is just marketing fluff.
The oil of 2016 is far superior to the oil of 1956. Synthetics are better than dino oil. It is a real difference, not just fluff.
The real question is: Do you need it? In most cases, no. As you say, use the correct oil and change as needed. Most car engines today will easily top 150,000 miles if cared for. High performance engines will benefit from synthetics. Corvette comes with it from the factory.
Many years ago my brother and I did some testing on small displacement air cooled 2 cycle engines. (model aircraft and race car). With regular lubricants they would run in the 12,000 to 15,000 RPM range. With synthetics, we could get 15,000 to 18,000 RPM.
On Fri, 5 Feb 2016 09:11:03 -0500, Ed Pawlowski wrote in
Just curious, How did you measure the RPM? When I was a kid (55 years ago) I use to fly those model airplanes with the small gas engines (we call them "U-control", they were at the end of 60' of double wire). I used to read all the model airplane magazines and don't recall ever seeing a device to measure RPM. Not that I would have been able to afford it.
My brother borrowed a strobe from work that counted revolutions. I don't recall the exact instrument, but it was not very large.
In the 1970's I worked for Sullivan Products (Pylon Brand) and they made those wires you used. We flew radio control planes from the Philadelphia Naval Yard air strip. For me it was a cheap hobby as I got a lot of stuff either free or very cheap.
ARCO's Graphite Oil, marketed back in the 80's as a fuel saver (supposed to give 5% better fuel mileage)...This stuff was withdrawn from the market due to a basic problem they couldn't solve - how to keep the solids (graphite chips) in suspension. I also always looked "dirty" which didn't help it's ales any.
Any hydrocarbon (oil) and most synthetic base stocks are all LIGHTER than Water, as in a specific gravity of "less than" 1.0 - that is why they float on the top of water. Graphite has a specific gravity of "greater than" 1.0 and with our normal gravity here on Earth it will find it's way to the bottom of the container and stay there! This made for some really neat, tough, sludges in engines that caused over heating and restricted flows..bad news. You have to have what is called "gel strength" in a fluid to "suspend" any higher specific gravity solids within it, when the movement or flow is stopped.
Photo-tachs were the old way. Audio tacks also work today (can be as simple as a program on a laptop and a microphone - or I assume, an app on a smartphone.
They don't work too well on glowfuel engines at 18000 rpm though - -
- . I do have an older Veeder Roote optical (photo) tach with an attachment that allows you to use it as a shaft tach or a surface speed indicator (for belt speed)
Assuming it wasn't taken off the market because it was clogging oil filters I would guess they just weren't selling enough of it to be worth the trouble anymore.
I dont know what kind of scripts or crap they are using, but that site refuses to load for me. I tried 2 browsers. But I only have older browsers on my Win98 machine. All I see is their header and the other browser froze up.
I dont know what it says, but I never understand how sites can make some simple text so damn complicated they dont work at all, without using a half million watts of power to load the damn thing....
Normally a PDF will just download onto my harddrive. But now that you said it, it's one of those online viewers. Not the first time I had problems with those. And since I have my own viewer, who needs it online. The web has gotten too complicated!
Chrome is not made for Win98. I have Firefox, and also a real simple browser called Off By One. I have a few others installed too, but I gave up when it locked firefox, forcing me to use the 3 finger salute.
At work I use a $4000 graphics workstation loaded with memory and fast processors yet there are some websites out there that are so loaded with scripts, flash, silverlight and banner ads that it crashes/hangs my browser.
Makes me wonder WTF they are trying to accomplish.
I wonder the same thing. If a company wants to sell products, or a person wants people to view their website, shouldn't it be usable by EVERYONE. I dont have any choice. I'm stuck with dialup internet because that is all I can get which is affordable. If I want to buy a car part, I want quick access to the parts being sold, description, price, and a small picture or two. What else is needed?????
Seems some sites have gone crazy with useless features. They may create some fancy looking effects, but in the end, they are hurting their sales. I personally wont wait very long for sites that take forever to load, and if sites cause my browser to freeze or other problems, I wont go to their site ever again. I also think that videos are overused these days. I was looking at pool cue sticks, and some of them had videos. WHY? Just show me a clear photo of the stick and some text to explain what it's made from, and it's weight, size, and so on... Same thing when i was trying to find a wiring diagram for my farm tractor. I found a video, which took over an hour to download, and it showed 5 minutes of the guy walking to his garage to get his tools, 2 min of the guy pointing to the generator and telling me that this is the generator, and so on.... One simple photo, with the parts labelled would have given me more information...
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