damper oil

[ronnie]

can anyone tell me where i can get sae 40 oil , local motor factor tells me ha can't get it nor does halfords have it and what quantity would i need for the front dampers

[Tom and Maria]

I got mine from Wilkinsons.

[oddbod]

Local Tool Hire shop do sae.30,which is OK to use,1l cost me £5 and including using some to flush out the old oil and refilling front and rear dampers I have enough left to top up for the forseeable future!!

[bmcecosse]

Probably need to go to a motorcycle place - but don't let them fob you off with 'fork oil' !!! Last week-end at Thirlestane show - there was SAE 40 and SAE 50 oil for sale. I expect the same stall will be at other shows in Scotland - certainly usually at Moffat on the 24th this month. Used to get SAE 30 in Tesco garden section for lawn mowers- which would be a good starting point - or use EP90 as I did many,many moons ago. I haven't seen SAE 40 oil in Wilkinsons...... 10W40 is NOT SAE 40 oil...... It's thinner (and therefore even less effective) than the original damper fluid which is SAE 20.

[ronnie]

The guy in the local hire shop says compressor oil would do but there was no sticker on the bottle tellin you what it was ??

[JSimons]

The guy in the local hire shop says compressor oil would do but there was no sticker on the bottle tellin you what it was ??

When i did a recent halfords search to find some, it said in the description of a compressor oil that it was a SAE40 equivalent.

[bmcecosse]

Ooooooooh - now that's interesting! Something useful in Hellfrauds at last!

[Trickydicky]

Hi,

You can also get SAE30 from B+Q in the lawnmower section.

Just for info everyone,I recently removed my rear dampers to replace the oil and found the seals to be leaking at the damper arm, I managed to get a 2nd hand pair from a member on here off a traveller, (I have a 4 dr saloon), flushed them out and replaced the oil with SAE30.
When I got them I found they were slightly diferent from the ones I had, they were physiclly the same size apart from the two bores of the damper pistons which were bigger. After looking on the ESM site I found they were the 25% uprated ones.
I must say that if anyone needs to replace the rear dampers I can highly recomenned them, the handling is now firm and A1, I know the old ones were defunct and would have not been working properley but even the wife noticed and commented on the difference.

Richard

[bmcecosse]

I 'believe' the uprated ones are from other BMC cars of the era.

[chesney]

I got my SAE 30 from Homebase, the smaller local one didn't stock it but the big one by Sainsburys did

[chickenjohn]

ESM will sell you "Jack Oil" for this very purpose. I used the jack (i.e. trolley jack oil) on a customers car (a nice Minor Million) and the ride is very nice and smooth and well damped using the "Jack oil".

[bmcecosse]

Jack oil may only be SAE 10 which is less viscous than the original SAE 20. Almost any new oil will be better than 40 year old oil that has had it's long chain molecules ripped to shreds many moons ago!

[ronnie]

I bought a Ltr of SIP compressor oil from the local hire shop and it is SAE40 . £6.99 a litre . Im going to assume this will do the same job

[bmcecosse]

Lifetime supply there!