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Hello, I have a 48 Super Eight and was just looking to get some opinions on which oils/grease brand/weights should use in my crankcase, transmission, starter/generator oil points, grease points, etc. also how much should I use in the starter/generator points?
I also just rebuilt the engine is there a better oil to use for break in?

I use Lucas Hot Rod & Classic 10W-30 in my 49' 288. I want Zinc in the oil. Also use a couple of drops of the same in the generator and starter oil cups. Your 48' owner's manual will answer the rest of your question.

From the Main Menu - Select Factory Service Index, Lubrication, Lub Chart for 22nd series. This site contains an enormous amount of information for various models and years. I spend a lot of time poking around here educating myself and copying data to my mainframe for quick reference.

Moody, listen to Packard Don. The Search box will furnish every last drop of information. BTW, the zinc/ZDDP nonsense has long since been debunked; visit the Search box. Kendall Conoco Phillips and other engineers themselves owning flat cam engines with vastly higher valve spring pressures than our old inline lawn mower engines explained.

Kev knocked himself out setting up the most user friendly, comprehensive marque site imaginable, and people don't bother to use it.

We all have specific queries now and then and there are some knowledgeable gents here for those, but really, most of the questions posted have been answered, as Packard Don points out, hundreds of times. Literally.

And many of those questions are basic internal combustion engine queries -- hardly Packard specific -- that Googling and YouTube have explained to death with EZ cartoons, et al.

We live in a nation where people want to push buttons, no longer read anything not available via a mouse. There's a staggering amount of comprehensive information in the Literature Archive alone; third link below Main Menu on the left of this well-organized site's homepage.

BTW, i'm not the only one who visits this site simply because there are treble, even quadruple, the number of people in this country as when our Packards were built, and the single drivable day of the entire year for us other than 6am weekends is Stupor Bowl Sunday, so PI gives us an autoholic fix.

A quality 10 W 30 will do fine.
After a 500 mile break-in, drain and refill with the same.

If you drive a lot in hot weather, a 10 W 40 is a good choice.

I'd use conventional 10 W 30 for break in, then go to a full synthetic 10 W 30 or 10 W 40.

I'd change oil every 2500 miles with conventional oil, and every 4,000 miles with full synthetic, unless you drive under very adverse conditions.


I run a Model T Ford on 10 W 30 full synthetic. It works great in any weather.

This Model T will easily do 46 to 50 MPH, and I often drive it over 40 MPH, and I have put many thousands of miles on it with no issues whatsoever.

packardinfo.com/xoops/html/downloads/ZDDPMotorOil.pdf

There are many opinions on whether a Zinc additive in motor oil is necessary. After reading this article I switched to Lucus Racing and Classic Car oil figuring it can hurt. I also use Sea Foam in the gas tank and two ice cubes in my Bourbon.

Older engines with low specific output do not need zinc in the motor oil.



Some engines built in the mid to late 1950s can benefit from it, and high output engines of the 1960s and early 1970s need it, if they are run hard.

Gnerally speaking, fuel additives are not needed when using today's pump gasoline. It's already loaded with additives. Just make sure it's fresh and of good quality. Most all flathead engines will run fine on 87 octane fuel, or lower.

MD16, here again, from a couple years ago:

"We'd thought the ZDDP business long since vanquished by stake through heart.

The below is from a post made several years ago after discussion with major oil company techs, themselves owning various flat cam engines, one relating that he'd also owned a '41 Packard.

But first, everything from Packard's publications through MoToR's Auto Repair Manuals of the '30s, '40s, '50s lists 20W winter, 30 summer for Packards, and nearly all other cars.

20W/50 is better suited for a worn out engine flogged in Arizona. Its thickness prevents it reaching all the critical metal-to-metal wear spots on cold start up.


ZDDP/zinc is a another red herring. Today's zinc levels were "lowered" back to where they were in the '70s and before, after too much zinc hindered catalytic convertors. And we didn't hear zinc hysteria back then. You can trace it to a couple curmudgeons in the CCCA with flathead Cad 346-ci V-8s which use, unlike Packard's hardened steel, a chintzy bronze timing gear. They had trouble after rebuilds, so of course it's the motor oil.

Some Joe Sixpaks w/ the usual backyard hot-rodded SBC 350s had problems after their rebuilds, also blamed the motor oil. The internet can be akin to shouting fire in a crowded theater.

A Kendall/Conoco-Phillips engineer, himself with a highly-tweaked '67 Camaro with -- like many of our Packard engines (the big '30s seniors had the quality of a roller cam, but then even Packard/R-R Merlins have flat cams)-- a flat cam engine with m u c h higher valve spring pressure, explained that a friend of his was the one who produced the Indiana Region of the CCCA's 15W/40 "Classic Car Motor Oil," (advertised in Hemmings, etc.) and that even Kendall started marketing some oil with higher zinc because, he laughed,

"If you want to stay in business, you either give people what they want or think they need."

This petroleum engineer gearhead himself uses the same off-the-shelf semi-synthetic Kendall GT1 10W-30 i use in my '47 Super Clipper's inline eight lawnmower engine. I use Kendall because i came of age on the East Coast, liked the smell and old color (since abandoned), akin to Packard engine green, being a sucker for marketing, but an exhaustive Consumer Reports feature compared various major brand motor oils of the same weight used 60,000 miles in a fleet of NYC cabs and found "little or no discernible difference among any of them."

ZDDP additives only settle at the bottom of your sump. And too much zinc unleashes other woes:aaoil.co.uk/123579-2/

Much ado about nothing. The cheapest off-brand motor oil available today streets ahead of the best from the '60s, let alone the '40s. By extension, a Chevron or ExxonMobil petroleum engineer explained to a lifelong auto/aero machinist/mechanic/pilot supercharged '37 Cord Phaeton, Auburn 12/Marmon 16-owning friend that the black molybdenum/graphite chassis grease, whether those brands or Sta-Lube, a factor of eight (8) times better than the orange fiber grease around when our cars new into the '70s.
And that exchange was in the late 1970s/1980.

Finally, and pardon the verbiage but not being retired as many here gathered, when i do post include what i can: Annual oil changes, certainly at 2,000 miles, are excessive and pointless, given the superiority of modern detergent motor oils, providing the owner not make the common mistake of firing up his car in the garage to show it off for a few minutes to visitors, or driving around the neighborhood, then letting it sit for weeks or months.

Never start an engine lest you intend to drive it at least 18 or so miles highway to equalize temperature of block, manifold, head, stave off the formation of sludge, varnish, carbonic acid. A local fire dept. used to fast idle their trucks for 15-20 minutes then shut them off, only to discover they were only wearing their rings.

An old mechanic's test was to place your hand on the bottom of your oil pan. If too hot to keep there more than a split second, you got your oil hot enough.

I like a stone simple device provided by www.MasterLube.net, which captures your engine's peak oil pressure in an aluminum cylinder, which you can release via hidden toggle to pressurize your engine before starting, when according to McDonnell Douglas, Continental, and the SAE, 80-90% of all engine wear occurs.
Tell Kerry McCracken a '47 Super Clipper in Walnut Creek,CA and a quartet of '50s Ferraris near me referred you."

I reckon that someone is going to have to melt down a silver half dollar and cast and reload a few bullets to shoot that damned zinc nonsense in its face. It's a freaking flathead, not a blown Hemi.


I think changing your oil annually is wise. These cars just get run occasionally in most cases, and sometimes only for a few minutes. That doesn't wear out the oil, you say, and correctly so. But the reason is water. Like as not, you'll rarely get the oil hot enough to boil off any condensation which might occur, so it's best to drain it out.


Just did oil changes, all 3 holes, on one of the HDs. 2200 miles. There was water in the tranny. Go figure.


But you know what? Yours is yours, so do as you like. I plan to do as I like.

Old Fashions are my favorite “from ago” beverages!🤣
Thanks for the info as i need to oil my ‘49 8 sedan! Good to know synthetic oil is ok. What about the three spd w/OD, can you use a full synthetic gear oil as well?

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