Lagondaforum

Subject: V12 Engine oil

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As the new owner of V12 De Ville 16027 I need lots of help, but with the vehicle having been standing almost unused for 5 years what oil should I put in the engine. We had the engine running for a few minutes the other day but after such a long period I,m sure it should be changed.

Subject: Re: V12 Engine oil

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Dear petemick

Nice car, I have the same, do you have an image to post?

Get the repair instructions written by David Hine, join the club if you have not yet.

Very important with an engine with unknown history is not to use modern oil with many additives which can detach deposits having been sitting in corners of the oilways for decades. As the original engine has no modern oil filter all this stuff would circulate permanently around and create wear or plug the system somewhere. The system is designed for oil without these additives and the sump is the "filter" it should form sludge here

I think there are two possible ways to go:
1. You leave the engine as is, stay with classic oil and change the oil often. I do it this way. What you should do at least is to remove the old oil, remove the lower end of the sump (the large flat ribbed plate held with huge number of screws and clean out the sludge there. Open the double "oil filter" housing and have a look at the filters and clean them with fuel and see if they have no damage. It might be good to check the pressure relief valve in the oils system that it is not stuck open (see also what Mark and Jim wrote about that). I am driving less than 2000miles per year with the car, so changing the oil once per year is a bit a waste of oil but cheap (the manual for the car says change every 5000 miles) and you can not do anything wrong with a mistake in a conversion (it is a complicated system and every change here changes something there). I am running with cheap SAE40 oil from a local supply.

2. You do a conversion to modern oil filters (see also the above post from Mark and Jim, there are also other ways to do it, e.g. a conversion of the original oil filter housing with fitting modern filters there). This conversion especially makes sense if you have to overhaul the whole engine. After that you can run modern oil.

What you also should do is to open the water plates (at least one to have a look). Again many little screws and it may be very hard to loosen the water plate without damaging it. Remove the sludge on the water side.

Let us know if you have more questions, I am pure amateur but try to learn and do much myself.

Subject: Re: V12 Engine oil

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Thank you for that help, I will certainly remove the sump plate and clean out the sludge. They sell a monograde oil (SEA40) for high mileage engines here (South Africa taxi market) I think that would be a good starting point. My car has the Cotal electric gearbox which seems to work fine and was the only one factory fitted.
I was told that in our ambient temperatures overheating could be a problem ,hinted at by the previous owner, so apart from cleaning out the cooling system I was considering one of those auxiliary electric water pumps in the bottom hose, do you have any experience of this system?.

I will need lots of help on all aspects of the rebuild so I really appreciate your assistance.


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Subject: Re: V12 Engine oil

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Peter,

your car has very interesting features: the cotal box and a period radio.

concerning overheating and electric waterpump see also the post "V12 boiling". In short: I can recommend the electric waterpump which I installed in series to the original one. The correct long term cure would be to clean out the block and especiallly the waterways in the heads and to check the impeller of the original water pump.

Subject: Re: V12 Engine oil

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A week or so ago I sent an E mail to the Australian supplier of the water pump, to date no answer, would it be the same as was fitted by Volkswagen to some versions of the Kombi where the front radiator needed some assistance in circulating cooling water from the rear mounted water cooled engine?

Subject: Re: V12 Engine oil

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Hi folks,

Peter gave some very sound advice regarding the engine oil.

I would like to add that it may be worth de-scaling the radiator. In the UK we have successfully used Fernox DS3 which may also be available in S Africa. This is a nice easy starting point for getting the car to run cool.

Colin M34

Subject: Re: V12 Engine oil

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Hello all,

There is an Australian product called "Liquid Intelligence" thta has a boiling point of about 190C. It has completely cured overheating in my V 12 and there is a complementary descaling praduct. liquidintelligence115.com.au

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