What kind of fluids to use in the 200?

[Eric Rose]

In my older hydraulic cam engines, sometimes I'll substitute a quart of ATF for a quart of oil. Its good as a detergent and the hydraulic additives are good for the lifters. I've seen lot of engines with ticking hydro lifters quiet down after adding ATF to the oil. A transmission gets just as hot as an engine, so you don't have to worry about it burning off or degrading from the heat. If you've got a recent rebuild or a low mileage engine its not needed, but its worked for me on well worn engines.

Also, I stay away from Fram oil filters because they use generic anti-drainback valves. Its probably not a big deal of these old Ford engines, but the Fram filter spec'd for the water-cooled VW engines doesn't have the right valve in it and it causes lower oil pressure than the OEM filters. I stick with Puralator Gold, WIX, or Motorcraft.

For transmission fluid, I am partial to type F because I like the firmer shifts. But if your transmission leaks or burns fluid you might want Dexron because its easier to find at gas stations and such. Some of them don't carry Type F anymore. You can mix type F and Dexron without any trouble so you don't have to worry about that. Most of the "aftermarket" brands of transmission fluid like Hurst and B&M are really just Type F.

 

[JackFish]

I did a search on bob is the oil guy for the ATF as engine flush myth.
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ub ... 099&page=1

ATF is somewhere in the same viscosity as a 5W-20 motor oil. ATF does not have near the detergents in it that a well formulated engine oil has. So, ATF has no more cleaning power (actually less) that a good 5W-20 oil.

Here is where the old tale of cleaning came from. Most of it started back in the 50's when everyone was using low grade single weight oils. The cleaning effect has more to do with viscosity than anything else. Example: Put a big wad of grease in your hand and rub you hands together. Now, pour some 30 weight oil on your hand and rub them together. You will see the oil try to clean the grease. Now, pour some ATF in your hand and you will see a little more cleaning. Now pour some liquid hand cleaner/soap in you had and the cleaning will continue. Now, pour some kind of solvent on you hand, i.e., gasoline, kerosene, etc., and the rest of the grease will come off. The lighter the viscosity of the fluid the better it breaks up the grease. Now granted the liquid soap and solvent have oil/grease cutting agents in them, but the ATF does not.

All ATF is, is a light weight oil with additives in it to make an automatic transmission work.

 

[fordconvert]

The thing about it starting back with older oils makes a lot of sense. Not to mention back then they did not have an entire shelf of additives like we do now. All there was back then was what mystery marvel and stp? For all we know thats all we have now, just under about 30 different names. In the 60's and 70's ATF was used in many hydraulic machines especially in cooler climates because of its multi viscosity. Warmer climates they often used 30weight motor oil. Now there are 'universal' oils that are much better. Wish I knew that before I bought 25 gallons of atf for my skid steer.

 

[Eric Rose]

Good to know about the ATF flush being a myth... I suppose in the old VW 8 valve motors where you normally run 20w50 the thinner ATF would almost be like a detergent.

ATF is great as a hydraulic fluid for jacks and such... we used it to fill our porta-power last week.