Substitute for "Assembly Lube" - Motor Assembly Saturday

For assembly lube (not for the cam) use 50/50 mix of STP and White grease.

 

Moly grease will do for cam and lifters, but only apply a thin film on the cam lobes and lifter bottoms. Use plain old 30 wt motor oil (no synthetic) for everything else and prime the oiling system before firing it up.

 

That's close to how I was taught.

*30 wt oil in a coffee can for pistons, pins, rods, and other general moving parts. A good messy dip in the can for all the parts as they go in.

*NEVER synthetic oil or additives with teflon. Rings won't seat.

*Lighter oil in pan... 5w30 or 10w30 at most. A new engine can't squeeze a heavier oil through the tight clearances as effiecently, especially on cold startup. Lighter oil also slings onto the cam better. Leave the thick stuff (STP, 30w, 20w50) for engines with plenty of miles and looser clearances.
The cam especially needs that oil loose and able to fly about in the crankcase. Sticky and thick dosn't do that.

*Moly grease on the cam lobes and lifter bottoms only. You only need the high pressure protection there, and only for a short time. Cam bearings and bearing surfaces DON'T get moly...

*White lithium grease for all the bearings and bearing surfaces... as well as a nice coating on the valvetrain parts, like rockers and pushrods.

*ALWAYS ALWAYS!!! Prime the oil pump, but only JUST before starting.
Another benefit of light oil is easy priming. I prime until the oil pressure gauge reads well AND oil flows steady over the rocker arms.
Shove the distributor in and start that puppy right up. If you are not at the point of doing this, don't prime yet.

*30 wt oil in another coffee can... put your lifters in and let them soak for 24-48 hrs. Use a pushrod end to pump them a little while they are submerged, right before you install them. If any air bubbles out, they are not ready, OR you can pump them all until no bubbles come out.
Then moly on bottom, lithium on top, drop in engine.

To the original poster:
White lithium grease is another name for assembly lube.
Moly is high pressure cam lobe lube, and must be used on a new cam.
Those two, an oil pan full of 5w30, 2 coffee cans half full of 30 wt, and you have all you need.

Change the oil and filter right after cam break in.
Do not use synthetic or additives until the engine is well broken in.
The tighter you build the engine, the lighter the oil you should use.
Gradually increase the thickness of the oil as the engine ages.

 

Thanks for your advice. I found Coastal assembly lube. The assembly is going great. Got cam shaft in, crankshaft, pistons, timing chain. I may even finish tomorrow with the rest. All the plastigauge measurements were in range. Finally after 5.5 months I am getting close.

After every part that goes in the motor I am video taping the motor for 3 seconds when I am done I hope it will look like the motor was assembled in 2 minutes. I will find a way to link it on here if you want to take a look. Probably through You Tube.

 

half and half. 1/2 Type F and 1/2 straight 30wt dino oil (the cheap stuff). Moly cam assembly lube on new flat tappet camshafts.

I personally don't think it makes any difference, other than on a new cam. If it's a roller cam, you don't have to worry much. The main thing is to spin the pump before you start it. And not 2 days before initial running. Pre-lubing is done LAST. Right before dropping in the distributor and setting the timing. And I don't just spin in a few seconds. I always run the drill a while (at least a minute) to circulate some oil through the passages. This way, if there is a piece of lint from a towel or something, it has a chance to be flushed out and caught by the filter. Plus it gets most of the air bubbles out of the passages and the lifters. I normally will pull a breather out of the valve cover and watch for oil. Once I see oil, I usually spin it another 15-30 seconds....usually about the time the drill either starts smoking or the battery goes dead.

It's all a matter of personal preference.

 

Be careful using petrol jelly in an engine. This ONLY works with PURE CONVENTIONAL OIL. Any syntheic oils will turn petrol jelly into a frothy foamy mess. DO NOT USE VASELINE WITH SYNTHETIC OIL.

Also, any pre-assembly lube should be thin enough to allow oil to properly flow without gunking anything up. If you use a real heavy grease, or a lot of it, chances are you'll do more harm than good.

Diesel oil still has plenty of zinc in it from what I've heard, so I would recommend using it for the first 3,000 miles.

 

Back when I was just a kid starting out I was taught to use heavy bearing grease to lube the crank and bearings as assembly lube. Since then things have changed a lot. Like diesel engine oil - they have taken most all of the zinc out of it too. Use the additive. Unless you use silicone RTV as assembly lube nothing you put on the bearings is going to keep the oil from washing it off. It may not mix with synthetic oils but it will wash off - oh, don't use synthetic oil in a freshly rebuilt engine. The rings won't seat properly - they need a bit of friction to seat then in. After about 500 miles you can put the good oil in it.

 

That's an old wives tale. The rings seat the same no matter which oil you use. The manner in which the engine is ran, the surface finish of the cylinder walls, and hardness of the rings have more to do with how they "seat" than anything else. We use synthetic oil all day every day and have never had a problem with initial starts. I will say again, that if you use vaseline with synthetic oil, you will fail the engine. There's no debate there. After the petroleum jelly foams up the synthetic oil, you get no oil pressure/flow and things start to die real quick.

The big reason I don't recommend syn oil on initial builds is that it's expensive and the first oil change is normally a low mile one.

Now, there are some rubber compounds that don't react well at all to synthetic oil, so be sure that any seals or gaskets you use are compatible with synthetic oil.

As long as wer're talking about oil. The only additive that I've seen work well are the Lucas oil additives for diesel, and anything with Linkite in it. Like in ZMAX. We also used mouse milk oil additive in our diesels as well with noticible results.