Does anyone remember ARCO Graphite Oil?

[Ouisie]

replying to Paintedcow, Ouisie wrote: I used Arco Graphite oil in my first car, a 1972 Ford Maverick with a 200 cubic inch straight 6 cylinder engine and 3 speed manual transmission. I seemed to work well, nothing fantastic, just worked well, except for one problem - the viscosity of the oil seemed, visually anyway, to be far lower than anything I'd ever seen before but I figured that that was the idea, so the graphite could do the work of lubricating with minimum viscous resistance/damping, which sounded great. But in practice, this combination of the 'super' lubricant, graphite, and the very low viscosity of the oil allowed this SOOT BLACK oil to slowly but surely seep out everywhere - the gaskets that easily held back higher viscosity conventional motor oil didn't do very well holding back Arco Graphite and while it didn't actually leak in the conventional sense, such as by dripping oil, it did succeed in a few months, in coating the entire engine compartment with a filthy, sticky, greasy jet black graphite luster which ultimately resulted in total dread at the very though of opening the hood much less having to actually touch anything under there. Even after getting the engine and engine compartment steam cleaned and changing back to nice, CLEAN conventional oil, that filthy black liquid Soot refused to be completely removed, and I suspect that THAT was the reason for its disappearance, and GOOD RIDDANCE!! Of course, now I'm scared to try any kind of 'new' 21st Century oil because of my Arco Graphite experience, although I do use oil additive Restore.

[Jeffrey L Pollak]

replying to Paintedcow, Jeffrey L Pollak wrote: Hello, I changed my engine oil several times with ARCO graphite engine oil in my 1972 Chevrlet Nova. Graphite, a form of pure carbon can either be a lubricant ( as in dry graphite to lubricate lock tumblers, pins , and internal parts (micro pulverized into minute micron size), or an abrasive in larger size. Obviously ARCO got the graphite to flow and go where the liquid oil carrier would flow. In addition, casr iron engine blocks are porous, alowing a lubricating element to fill a void mocroscopic space. It also passed through oil filters with no blockage. I had NO problems with it other than it making oil changes more messy. It was also impossible to judge oil being durty or due for an oil change by looking at the dipstick. Jeff, J.D. [e-mail]

[Ron]

replying to Paintedcow, Ron wrote: yes, I used it in my 1968 Cougar. It ruined the engine.

[Gene Starwind]

I still have a plastic bottle of 10w-40. Intact seals.

[randy333]

I do, my dad used it in our 1971 Caddy. Tore up a rocker arm, changed back to normal oil.

There were lawsuits over it and Arco stopped selling it.

Saw full case go up for acution in August of 2020, I think it went for about $10.00 I should have bought it, gets good money on eBay.

Randy

[homebuilding]

It was great stuff. The Unser boys had an Indy 500 team sponsored by Arcographite. ALL of their cars avoided the engine blowups so common in that era. It was a clearly superior product, but it was WAY different, right out of the can. It was pure black--with a silvery iridescence. So, with use, it didn't get any blacker--most are accustomed to putting in translucent oil in fresh--seeing it darken over time. It was just too different. .......and it did not cause leaks, at all, but any leak would stain the concrete underneath just like diesel crankcase oil.....so that was a negative, too.

[Bud Frede]

It was a gimmick, just like whatever that stuff was that supposedly helped lubricate your engine by adding teflon to your oil.

The Arco stuff wasn't pure snake oil like the teflon one was, but it didn't work any better than oil without graphite did, and in some circumstances it worked worse.

Graphite is good where you need a dry lubricant, or where you have very low temperatures. It's not so great when mixed with a lubricating oil, and not good at all at high temperatures.

[gbaloun]

I used it in a Chevy station wagon. In a few months it totally destroyed the engine. The piston walls were scraped. The crank shaft moved forward almost an inch. I totally disassembled the engine. Got larger pistons and had the cylinders bored to match.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Crankshaft moved forward and inch? I call BS on that, impossible to rotate if that happened.

[James]

I purchased about 12 quarts at an garage sale a few months. I liked the look of the vintage can!

[HP]

Graphite conducts electricity, it caused shorts in the ignition system.