Re: Tim's '55 Patrician

Posted by Owen_Dyneto On 2011/9/22 14:58:55

but when would you recheck again?

Good question, and probably good answers vary quite a bit. The original factory service intervals were intended for cars driven regularly, perhaps 12,000 miles a year, so how to apply them to lower-mileage use is a worthy topic. You've got to separate those needs that are time-dependent from those that are mileage dependent. For example collector cars often don't get the prolonged driving that tends to drive moisture from things like rear axles, so changing gear oil more frequently makes sense.

I can just tell you what I've followed over the years. Almost regardless of miles I change the oil in the fall when I lay the cars up for a few months so they sit with fresh oil; I do a grease job at the same time. I flush and change antifreeze every other year. I change differential and standard trans gear oil about once every 10 years. On the car with hydraulic brakes, I try to change out most the fluid every 2 or 3 years - not actually flushing but just bleeding to replace most of it. I drop the oil pan about every 10 years. I repack wheel bearings and check/replace the seals whenever I do brake service or pull the drums to check brake condition. I oil the 3 or 4 lubrication points on the distributor and those on the starter and generator each spring. On cars with refillable shocks like the 34, I check them each time I do a chassis lube. I clean my oil-bath air filters every 5 years or so. For ignition tuneups like plugs and points I pretty much stick to the old rule of thumb - every 10,000 miles or when performance begins to tail off.

Hope that's helpful. It's easy to make up a little spreadsheet in Excel or something like that to keep track of when whatever service was performed.