The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop 216 engine oil questions

Ok after going through multiple posts and multiple pages of searches i can;t find what i am looking for. I am sure that this has been discussed and would welcome links to the discussion if warranted.

The truck i have has the original 216 with about 90k miles on it. I intend to rebuild the engine just to be sure everything is ok with it with it having sat for 35 years. My main concern and questions come from the oil and oil delivery to the engine.

My understanding is that the engine does not have an oil filter on the truck. I have seen external canister filters in the past but this particular truck does not have one. Is there a way to put either a modern twist oil filter on the engine(someone make a kit?) or the original type canister filter on the engine without much issue?

With it being the type of engine and how it the compnents are oiled. Would it be best to use a synthetic oil to help keep the engine lubed under regular driving conditions?

Any tips or tricks on rebuilding the engine and changes i should make now versus later down the road. I will have the engine apart after all.

thanks
Z

You can go to just about any part store and buy a remote filter kit but they will most likely have to order it. Mr. Gasket makes the kit and it's about $20. You can go the their website to get the part number. The oil lines will not come with it. The kit will mount to your fire wall or fender, not the manifold.

It's no big issue to add a filter whether it's a modern spin on or vintage canister. Just plumb it so it feeds from the oil pressure sending unit port and to the distributor valve. Also understand it's a bypass filter so it won't filter all of the oil every time through the engine. My '38 didn't have a filter & I didn't have a canister filter so I bought a remote base & fastened it to the firewall. When I managed to find a canister filter I could afford I swapped it out, no biggie.

Spin on

Canister

Oil filters on a 216 are kind of a waste. If you follow the return hole in the block you will find it goes into the rod oiling galley. This means the filter only has oil flowing through it when the pressure in the rod nozzle galley is lower than the main galley i.e. at an idle.
I think that is why Chev did not install them at the factory.
I have seen 216s where someone has drilled there own return hole, but this can drop the already low oil pressure.

Wouldn't something be better than nothing? I understand that they functioned for many many years without an oil filter on them and should function just fine without. However i would think a little extra insurance is better than none?

I know this topic will get more opinions than you would believe.

You first have to realize this project won't be cheap. That being said,really the only type of filter you can use without modifying the oiling system is a bypass filter, which seems almost pointless to me. However if you are going to have it apart anyway it is quite easy to convert to a full flow system.I am in the process of rebuilding a 216 as we speak. I am going to convert it to a full pressure/full flow set up. I had the crankshaft drilled for oiling to the rods by crower cams, (they seem to be the only ones that can do it, or at least want to do it, they have a cad/cnc program setup to eliminate missing the mark, once you see the crankshaft you will understand ) I also had them drill and tap the snout so I could bolt the harmonic balancer on, that just don't seem right to me,and it was only $180 for drilling the oil holes, the shipping was nearly as much though. That is definitely one drawback, but since the other engine has been running fine since 1979 I just amortized the cost over the NEXT 25 years, then it seemed reasonable (to me at least, but I am a bit nuts) You will definitely want to get the rods machined for insert bearings, You may want to consider drilling and tapping the 2 bottom holes in the timing gear cover so you don't have to take the entire engine apart to get in there, although there will probably be little reason to take it off, just saying...I will be posting my project on this website, for anyone to peruse. If you have any interest, just let me know.

Hi Zleviticus,

My Work Truck from 1976 to 1998 was 1946 Chevrolet One Ton Pick up.

I rebuilt the 216 shortly after getting it, and, ran it 296,000 City Miles and never had an Oil Filter on it...never had to do anything serious but adjust the Valves a couple times and pull a couple Shims once in a great while.

I ran a Marvel Mystery Drip Oiler, feeding into the intake Manifold.

Just use good Oil and, change it every 2,000 Miles.


Maybe use one of the Zink Additives in your Oil, which others here know about, but which are new to me.


Phil
Las Vegas

when my 40 still had the 228 in it, it didnt have a filter. i did some work to the top and bottom of the engine(top-cleaning, bottom-rod bearings)and did not add a filter. with regular oil changes the oil was clean even after 5000 miles(two summers). most of the dirt comes from the vented valve cover and blow by. since putting in the 56-270 ive corrected both issues and addressed full flow filtering. before that i just used shell/rotella sae 30wt oil. when i didnt like the color of the oil on the dip stick i replaced it regardless of miles which was usually between 1500-2000 miles.

If you choose to install a spin-on filter, be sure and put a restrictor bushing somewhere in the return line to the oil pan to keep from losing all your oil pressure. I use a main jet for a Holley carburetor as the restrictor on the ones I install. I prefer the original AC or Fram filter that mounts on the intake manifold. There are usually several of them on Ebay for pretty reasonable prices at any given time. The original canister-type filter has this restriction built into the standpipe leading to the return line already.

Bypass filters do a MUCH better job of cleaning up oil than the full-flow types on modern engines. The filter media can be woven much tighter, since the oil pressure drop across the filter won't starve the bearings for oil. If you can find one of the old Frantz filters that used toilet paper as the filtering media, they claim it will strain out particles as small as 2/10 micron. Full-flow filters catch the big stuff, 5 to 8 microns or so, and let the smaller particles flow through the media. About 30 years ago, I was a dealer for Frantz, mostly selling the filters for 18-wheelers that replaced the LuberFiner 750 cartridges. We changed the filter element every 10,000 miles, added enough fresh oil to replace what was lost during the filter change (usually 1 gallon on a 15-gallon system) and never changed the main engine oil. A sample of the drained oil was sent to a testing lab for analysis. We had rigs with over 100,000 miles on the oil that were still passing spectrometric analysis without a problem.
Jerry

Thanks for all the advice it is appreciated. Looks like i have a lot more thinking to do. LOL

I am starting to lean more toward a bypass filter for looks only.

Sorry,to straddle this topic with a question...If you connect the oil filter to where the oil pressure sensor goes....where does the oil sensor line go? or did I read that wrong..
Thanks

Jimmi V
Check the photo link above. A T-fitting is put on the oil pressure port to feed the filter. The gauge will read oil filter pressure, and the filtered oil goes from the pump to the filter and back to the sump, hence the 'bypass' name. Eventually, all the oil will make it through the filter and remove the gunk.

Thanks, that answered my question

Wouldn't it be quite a bit cheaper to just get a 235 with the full pressure system?
Also, you would have more cubic inches and more hp. I realize there are some that want to keep things as close to original as possible, but I believe if it were me I would get a later model engine that had a lot of upgrades.

I am one of those stupid purest restorers. If the truck was far gone and Sid not have a title, no original parts I would customize it. However with it having the original engine and parts I thought I best and neater to keep it original as much as possible.

I guess that makes sense. Didn't know the specifics of your truck.

A T-fitting is put on the oil pressure port to feed the filter. The gauge will read oil filter pressure

Right - it's not showing engine oil pressure, only the backpressure from the filter medium (and whatever restrictor is in the line).

Unless there is another restriction in the oil feed line to the engine, the gauge will read engine pressure as well. Effectively, the oil gauge port is a T-fitting off of the internal oil passage, so the second T just creates a form of manifold. The pressure at the gauge will read the pressure in that manifold, which is the pressure of the oil to the engine parts. If the gauge pressure is too low, reduce the size of the filter restriction and oil pressure will go up. The amount of oil bypassed to the filter will be reduced, so a balance must be found.

An engine oil system is very similar to a hydraulic brake in that pressure will equalize throughhout the system. In the case of engine oiling, where the pressure is monitored will have a slight, but measureable difference in the gauge reading. The oil gallery that feeds the main bearings on a stovebolt six is the one that also contains the pressure gauge port, so the pressure going to a bypass filter will be virtually identical to the pressure seen by the rest of the system.

To assure that the oil pressure is sufficient on some of the Chevy V-8 round track race engines I build, I tap into the center oil gallery just above the timing cover, and install an adjustable grounding switch that turns on a red tractor-trailer clearance light on the dash when pressure drops below 20 pounds. The very early small block engines used this location to supply oil to the bypass filter on 55 year model 265's that did not have a block-mounted filter. This point in the oil system is as far as possible from the oil pump, so it gives a means of monitoring pressure after all the leakage past bearings and the oil supply to the valve system has had its effect. It's generally 10 to 15 pounds lower at racing speeds than pressure monitored at the port beside the distributor. The switch in the front port also warns of pressure drop caused by oil sloshing away from the pump pickup in a turn before the gauge can respond, and the big light gets a driver's attention in a hurry.
Jerry

HRL said he knew of oil going 100,000 miles between changes. I thought I read somewhere oil would break down over time, even if just sitting on the shelf. Does it?

In the various lubrication seminars I've attended, we were always told that "Oil doesn't wear out- - - -it just gets dirty". If oil was prone to deterioration over time, wouldn't the stuff underground decompose before it was brought to the surface? It's possible to "re-refine" used oil and get a pretty good product suitable for certain lubrication duties even after it's been run its supposed normal lifespan in an engine. The sludge and contaminants are left behind, and the base oil goes through a similar fractional distillation process like it did the first time.
Jerry

the base mineral oil might not 'wear out' but the additives do, modern lubricants are a complex formulation .....
most suppliers will recommend keeping lubricating oils on the shelf for no more than 12 months, depending on type and storage conditions

Bill

I'm not so sure I would consider 5-8 microns big stuff, a 10 micron would be considered more than adequate in an industrial hydraulic system, with 25 micron being fairly common, 5 micron would be considered overkill, you can get 2-3 micron filters but those are for extremely sensitive systems. you have to keep in mind a micron is one millionth of a meter, there is 25.4 microns in .001 inch, at the very least you should have .002 clearance in most parts of the engine, even luberfiner which is used as a bypass filter (mostly) only bothers to document down to 5 microns. I'm not saying cleaner isn't better, but at some point you will be creating an incredible restriction in the system, I'm not sure how many microns an oil molecule is...thats the best part about lubrication, there is so many ideas and opinions surrounding it people can banter back and forth till #@#& freezes over, snd still come no closer to a conclusion than when they started.

Yes, it's fun to debate, but nobody's likely to change any long-held beliefs. The clearances on a stovebolt engine are so big in comparison to modern engines that they can survive without a filter at all. What we used to consider to be "normal" clearance is "worn out" on today's production engines. Hypereutectic pistons are supposed to be able to run with .0005" skirt clearance because they have virtually no thermal expansion at normal running temperatures. Ditto on rod and main bearings- - - -the clearances are so close they have to have the zero or 5 weight oils just so some lubricant can get between the parts. 30 weight just won't fit into those spaces well enough to prevent galling. OTOH, the super-lightweight oil flows away from stovebolt parts almost instantly because of the wide gaps between them. My biased opinion- - - -your mileage may vary!
Jerry

oddly enough, I am having my crankshaft ground to fit the main bearings to fit without shims. The specs are from .0005-.00331, the .0005 is what modern engines uses, (actually the 4.6 ford is spec'd at .0004) so they aren't that much different really. I would feel comfortable with .001-.0015, I did see where one of the indy engines is spec'd at .000, yes zero.

There's nothing wrong with precision-grinding the crank to fit the bearings on these restoration projects. They won't get enough mileage or load to ever wear the bearings to the point of needing adjustment. The shims were there to allow for tightening up clearances during the frequent in-the-frame overhauls these trucks needed. A valve job lasted about 10,000 to 15,000 miles, and the average ring job was done about every 30,000 or so. With regular oil changes, Babbited rods and insert-type mains could be re-used through two or sometimes three in-the-frame rebuilds before the engine needed to come out for a rebore and a full overhaul. The shop where I grew up in the 1950's did hundreds of such jobs. A stovebolt engine is a primitive, but very rugged sow's ear- - - - -go ahead and try to make it a silk purse if you choose, but millions of them got along for lots of miles just fine without all the TLC.
Jerry

I can only add about Filters is this:

When I was younger I had no filter. I said what I wanted and how I wanted to say it. Opinions...oh ya I had many and I let them spew out like 10w 30 on a 100 degree day.

I lost many a fiend, a tooth or two and a few nice lady friends.

Later on a started to Filter my thoughts and tried to be more of a gentleman. I had much more quality relationships with the filter..

..so by all means filter it..even if you can take out a little dirt...you will get more pleasurable miles.

I emailed Crower last year and was told they do not drill crankshafts anymore. I would imagine they do t have much call for it. I was curious to see if they did and the price in 2017.

Harmon

There used to be a shop somewhere in California that advertised in Hemmings every month their 216 and early 235 full-pressure oiling conversions. I even emailed them once some years ago to inquire about their services. It included drilling the crankshaft to get oil to the rod journals and other things. They advised that I ship my engine (block, rods, crank, ?) to them for evaluation and pricing. And they also had a complete automotive machine shop and could do a complete rebuild to whatever level you wanted. Sorry I can't remember the name, and I haven't looked in a Hemmings in years.

you are probably referring to Gene Beck, He is the one who sent me to crower cams.

Beck sounds right. I think their website at one time hosted the Inliners site.