Aero Shell 25w 60

My son is an A&P certified mechanic and works on radial engines for the Collings Fondation. I was at the hangar the othert day and noticed a 5 gallon jug of 25w-60 and thought that it should be ideal for a Norton in warm weather: good viscosity index, should be loaded with zinc, not sure if it has detergents.

Anyone have experience with or looked deeper into using a radial engine oil in their Norton?

RS

Radials dont spin very fast.

True, but they do have a lot of moving parts, leak oil and were designed back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. :lol:

I think out of all the oils out there, the aero ones would be the closest match for our needs.

The good stuff these days, in most aero oils, is 'semi-synthetic', at least, on the label.
Some oils are labelled/intended as running-in oils, and have practically nothing in them.
Read the label, carefully ?

Also, aero engines can have roller cam lifters, and spend 99% of their life at near full throttle.
Rather different operating conditions, and additive package requirements.
They don't actually do a lot of hours on the oil either, before its due for a change ?

If you submitted a sample of that oil, and some packaged motorcycle oils, the analyses may not be all that different.
If you picked the right motorcycle oil container - v-twin variety ??
Aero oil can be quite expensive though, unless you buy a lot of it ?

Gerry Bristow, late of the NOC email chat group, had 80,000+ miles up on his Mk3, engine untouched - and credited it to Mobil 1 15W-50.

I am using an oil from an engine shop next door to me, Joe Gibbs Driven HR1 15W50 high zinc formula, it is mainly used for chevrolet racing engines & gives great results on plain bearing high stress engines. My bike is a MK3, no problems here...........

25 hrs oil change. Remember that radials use a lot of oil . They do leak.
But remember radials span a pretty big spread in engine size and complexity.
Would suspect if they were drawn up today, they would leak much less due to
better gasketing and sealants.
But mostly they are fairly low rpm engines and dont have that annoying
high frequency vibration you get from modern ( comparatively )
engines.

Don't go there. There are many comments on this forum concerning oils. Numerous threads with better-proven ideas.

I use a 10/60 fully synthetic, got it from the local rally shop who use it in their old Ford rally cars to allow them to finish a rally with oil left in the sump, 20/50 burns up too fast in their tuned engines.