Jed Clampett had no idea what he started when he struck Texas Tea, did he?


BY FRANK TALABER Good ol’ Jed Clampett went hunting


to feed his family and ended up striking Texas Tea Black Gold and moved to Beverly Hills. Or so goes the story in the Beverly Hillbillies. Back then oil was oil and as long as it wasn’t black as tar everything was good. But as technology advanced, engines began to run hotter, with higher compressions and computers. Then the green movement slowly changed everything.


Tis reminds me, what happened to the good old days when you


knew the best stuff out there was a gold-plated whatever? Now there’s platinum, titanium, and what next? Superdoopermanium? Wait until they start changing the Olympic medals and gold is the measly runner-up award. It was back in the sixties when we starting growing our hair, getting


stoned and environmentally conscious that some scientists, as they sat out in their backyard talking to little animals, said, “Hey! Tey quit making dinosaurs a long time ago. Tis is a problem.” So they decided to start looking at alternatives, like synthetic


oils. Much of this research began even further back in the thirties with a German scientist named Dr. Hermann Zorn. He searched for lubricants like natural oils but ones that didn’t gel or turn to gum under gasoline engine environments. His work led to the invention of over 3,500 esters, including diesters, polyolesters and banana oil (chimpanzees and apes declined testing the banana oil synthetics, although baboons weren’t so smart. One look at their rear ends you’ll know what happened there). Not good, not good at all. Just a sidenote: this led to the testing by other Monkees in the


sixties and this explains why they ran around so fast on their TV show always looking for washrooms. Poor Dr. Zorn. Unfortunately he thought he was working for his


company on a synthetic beer/bratwurst combination, which would have made him immensely rich, famous at Octoberfest and a national hero. “Beer and bratwurst in the same glass without any gaseous side effects.” Years later they found him wandering incoherently in Berlin’s skid-row muttering, “Deichsel und mit getriebenen unterscheiden vermoche nach dem sie darstellen staubwolken au wirhelten.” Which literally translated means, “I was robbed.” Especially aſter


the war, when most German scientists defected to North America. If you’re wondering, synthetic oils weren’t made by some mad


scientist between Frankenstein’s monster, stem cell research and inventing a cure for cancer and PMS - much to his depressive haranguing wife’s disgust. Which of course made him wish he’d been single like Einstein yelling, “Eureka E=mc2.” Which wasn’t his original solution to the Teory of Relativity, but to the perfect milkshake recipe. Te milkshake idea fizzled out aſter he took out his backyard and half of Detroit in 1948. Synthetic oils are ester-based substances, along with other additives,


which far outclass any ordinary oils. Yes, I know, the first pantyhose were polyester-based and, oddly enough, the first polyester sweaters


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(the clue is in the name). Scientists soon realized that if you get pantyhose turning fast and hot enough (?), it turns into a rubbery mass called a fan belt. Hence was born the expression, “Get on yer bikes, girls.” Tis led eventually to SynLube in Vancouver in 1969. Te only


market at that time was selling their synthetic oils to the Lunokhod 1 Moon Rover and the US Moon Rovers. Tey soon realized that wasn’t a very profitable, or large, market. Okay they did sell four quarts to the Americans for $3,000,000,000 dollars US each, but aſter six trips to the moon the Apollo program was cancelled. A small note to history buffs here. Tey also sold two quarts to the


Russians, who at the time didn’t make it to the moon and couldn’t afford to pay in rubles, but ended up paying with 2,000 bottles of Vodka. “It’ll be a delirious three months until we sober up and the Vodka runs out,” said one SynLube official. “Tree months?” the Irish spokesman replied. “What do you take me for, a tee-totaler?” Although it does seems funny that with all those potatoes around


the Irish never invented Vodka. So, you ask, are synthetics really better? Here are some facts on


synthetic oils to dispel the old Ford Model T tales your grandparents would have you believe. 1. Synthetics will void your warranty. Wrong. Tey meet and exceed industry API and ILSAC standards (we’ll talk more later about those silly acronyms and what scientists get up to on their national conventions). 2. Once you switch to synthetic you can’t switch back to conventional oil. Wrong. Tey are fully compatible, and provide superior engine protection. 3. Synthetics are good only in new cars. Wrong again. Tey’re grr-- e--e--at (as Tony the Tiger would say) in older cars. It’s that superior protection thing again. 4. Synthetics need a break-in period first before switching your vehicle over. Oh buddy, we’ve fooled you again. Here comes the cattle prod for four wrong answers in a row. With modern engine designs, break-in periods are no longer required.


Any disadvantages to using synthetic oils? Yes. Tis, believe it or not, is straight out of Wikipedia: Potential


stress cracking of polyoxymethylene plastics when mixed with polyalphaolefin particles (just a word to the wise here, no matter how many times you spell this out, the red underlining is all over the place from Word’s SpellCheck, no wonder Bill Gates is going broke). And the rational thought to most of us intelligent, reality watching TV public is “WHAT THE BLEEP?” (Tat went over my head faster than a 747 at the national cheerleading competition.) Actually, what that means is, don’t use synthetic oil as car wax, dishwashing liquid or, unless you want to look like Phyllis Diller, Kojak, or Ilea (from the first Star Trek Movie), a shampoo. Oh, and synthetic oils are not recommended in rotary engines.


Here’s a little bit of trivia. Did anyone out there know that GM (Generally MadCorp) had built a four-cylinder rotary engine that was going to go into their Corvette advertised as “It sounded like a sewing machine, but out dragged a Mustang? (Car, not the horse).” Mazda also bombed with their first R100 car with the rotary (Wankel in some parts of the world, wanker in many others) engine. So why buy synthetics for $9-$19 per bottle, you ask, when “I can


get a great buy on a case of 12 jugs of oil at my local grocery store for $2.99”. Not likely, you get what you pay for. Ever look closely at a container


of oil? Tey all seem to have this funny starburst type stamp on them. Oil is rated by weight and by compositions needed to meet operating standards in various years of vehicles. Multi-grade oils were originally called All-Season oils. When you look at the can and read 5W30, that means in the winter the oil will pour out at the thickness of a five-


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