Taillight Oil

I bought some things from Eastwood, so now I'm on the daily e-mail promotion list. The ZDDP oil additive was the special du jour a couple of weeks ago so I bought a few bottles. I'm not all that sure what the story is on motor oils these days. As I understand it, if you've got an older engine the newer oils no longer have the ZDDP in them which can lead to rapid wear on the cam and lifters. I've got a 350 small block ready to drop into my hot rod project and I'd hate to destroy it because of bad oil. Likewise, most of the motorcycle engines on my old projects like my Sprints, have flat tappets and pushrods. The 900 has overhead cams that run directly onto shims that are in buckets on top of the valve springs. I would assume they would be subject to the same type of friction loads. The Sportster has roller lifters, so I guess it would be safe. It's bad enough dealing with the junk gasoline they sell these days. Now I have to worry about oils as well.

Also in the photo is one of the taillights I'm planning on installing on the hot rod. The piece to the left of it is the start on a bucket I'm going to make up so I can "French" them in. These were made up on the CNC plasma cutter at the college. It's a little bit bit small around the perimeter. I'll see if I can get by with them or else I'll just make a couple the old fashioned way. The faculty members that were working on the machine were having some issues getting things to run like they wanted. I was hoping to get a few flying lessons so I could run some things off on my own later on but I'm thinking that might be out. I'm in no hurry for them but I'm trying to get most of the parts I'm going to need gathered up for when the time finally comes for me to work on it.