1937 Chrysler Royal - Lubricants?

I just purchased a beautiful 1937 Chrysler Royal C16 touring sedan. I want to do routine maintenance on it such as oil change, grease, transmission oil and differential. My question is regarding new oils. Should I use a single grade non-detergent motor oil? How about in the trans and differential? The car has been running on modern fuel for several years but should I add lead or something like Lucas treatment? I have the shop manual but it refers to oils that were available at the time. Thanks

Larry

You don't need lead in the fuel. If the engine oil has been non-detergent there maybe a sediment build (sludge) up then stick to the same oil. If the motor has been gone through and modern oil like a 10/40 stick with it. Watch the rubber in the fuel line for deterioration from age and alcohol.

These questions have been answered about a million times. Use any good name brand 10W30 oil. You can use Shell Rotella 15W40 if you are pernickety and want to show off. No special gas additive required. Your motor was made to run on 65 or 70 octane, low lead gas. Today's cheapest regular is 87 octane which is better than the hi test they had in 1937. Again, if you want to be pernickety, you can add some Redex, Bardahl, Marvel Mystery Oil or other upper cylinder lube to save your valves and rings but it is not necessary.

If you experience vapor lock or hard starting in very hot weather you can add 10% kerosene, diesel or fuel oil to the gas. Sometimes it helps.

You can take the pan off and clean out the sludge. If it was run on non detergent oil for a long time it will be sludged up. Do you have an oil filter? They were an add on accessory for most cars back then. If you don't have one you should add one. They were called a partial flow which makes some people think they don't filter all the oil. This is an error. They filter all the oil, it just takes them about 15 or 20 minutes to do it. They have the advantage of filtering out the finest particles of dirt which full flow filters miss. Any filter is better than no filter.

They were supposed to last 5000 miles but will go much longer on today's road conditions. Put your hand on the filter or test the temp after a drive, if it no longer gets hot it is full of dirt and not working.