Lard..That's great. Wonder how it would work in a Bravo 1??

Just checked with my local Auto Zone, and it is indeed $7.99 a quart. Off to buy 20 of 'em (2 boats, 3 engines worth). Wife will surely say something like, "You spent $160 on motor oil?????" :crazy:

Interesting the comment about what your wife might say. I walked out of O'Reilly's after buying 8 cases for over $350 total, looking at my wife and commenting that I couldn't believe I just dumped that much on oil.

She looked at me and replied - and how much did you spend on those engines, and your complaining about spending a few bucks more on good lubricant? Touche - she was absolutely right.

I hope you guys don't drive the price up!!!!

Bravo's would do fine on bacon drippings.

We al hear an unusual situation from time to time.

I was at a marina last week and a boat was repo'd.

The drives were being serviced by a "hack mechanic" who was putting in 99 cent 30wt oil.

Poor basta*rd that buys that boat..

hey hydrocruiser, what do you think of red line's LIGHTWEIGHT SHOCKPROOF GEAR OIL. should we stay with the tried and proven 75W90/75W140 weights. i am starting to read more that with synthetic's you can safely run lighter weights, even motor oils. keep up the good work.

The guys who run Redline Shockproof Heavy have had excelelnt results reported. However, we heard of some foaming issues and it is messy to work with. It has a lot of sulfur in it.

We have not found the perfect drive lube yet. It seems Mercury HP (Green Death) is pretty good.

Mobil-1 75W-90 seems to work well too.

Is the Amsoil 75w/90 ok to run in the Bravo drive? I have heard both pros and cons. What is the down side? I have several bottles left, but willing to switch to Royal Purple, Mercury, or Mobil if you think it is better. Thanks.

Yeah, i thought one of the recent "recommended products" included one of Amsoil's gear lubes. Seem to recall it was highly rated for water dispersion or something?

I've been a religious user of Redline's products for my race cars. The Shockproof Heavy is so thick it doesn't pour out of a bottle; it glops. I think barring any disclosed negatives, the Lightweight Shockproof is probably a very good application; plus it's green :D But, since there's no price advantage vs. Merc's HP and the Merc HP is readily available, I'll probably just use that when I do my Bravo lube.
I WILL use Redline's Power Steering fluid when I service that system also.

I've ran it in Bravo drives with good results.

RP is probably fine..it does seperate from water...we don't know if that is good or not?

But then again...who ever gets water in their drives?

I do the maintenance on a buddy's boat and use Amsoil in his Alpha drive. A couple of seasons ago he had a shift shaft seal leaking bad along with some other seals. He figured out he was getting water in the gear lube when he saw his gear lube monitor tank looked like carmel milkshake. He ran it for almost 30 hours this way. I drained the oil and it was a contaminated mess. The lube and water mixed together, they did not separate. A friend who is the Merc tech at a local marina tore down the drive and replaced all the seals. He said all the bearings and gears looked great. At the time, the drive had about 900 hours on it and that is the only work that had ever been done to it. Amsoil made a believer out of all of us after that incident. The drive has over 1,100 hours on it now and is still going strong as is the 5.0LX motor that runs Mobil 1 15W50.

I liked the Amsoil 2000 Marine drive oil; the new stuff looks thin; and the Amsoil reps said not to use it in offshore boats to use instead their Amsoil Severe Gear 75W-90 instead.

I would go with Severe Gear for offshore use personally if I were using Amsoil products.

my .02

Here is the new AMSOIL Severe Gear 75w-110. The gear oil rating have been split recently. The 90wt range was split in 2. The lower half remains a 90 (75w-90) and the upper half becomes a 110 (75w-110).

http://www.modernoils.com/svt75w110.html

The 140 side has also been split. 190 is the new.
Ken

To my knowledge, Amsoil never made a 2000 series marine gear lube. There was Amsoil Series 2000 75W90 and there was a marine 80W90 lube. The Series 2000 was discontinued and replaced with Severe Gear 75W90. The old marine 80W90 was replaced with the newer marine 75/80W90 lube. The drive I referenced was running the older 80W90 marine lube, not the newest 75/80W90 lube. When I attended the Sunsation Rally a few years back, the Amsoil rep attending the show said not to run the new Severe Gear in outdrives (this was back when Series 2000 was being discontinued and used to be their suggested as well as Teague's suggested lube to run in Bravos) as it had too high of levels of sulfur in it and that it could attack the soft metals in the drive. Instead, he suggested using the 80W90 marine oil (75/80W90 marine lube was not out yet). So, sounds like it depends who you talk to at Amsoil as to what their suggested lube is for marine drives.

That's right in thinking way back..so what Amsoil product would you guys picks then?

Severe Gear for hard running frequent fluid changers.

Marine for cruisers that run all year on one drain. Marine is a better gear oil when contaminated with water I feel.

It is foolish to make a comment that the Severe Gear will harm a drive as it and the Marine are both GL-5.

Is this a new and improved oil filter from Mercury ?
http://www.mercurypartsexpress.com/P...Name=&compSKU=

Part no. 35-858004K

Just relaying what the Amsoil rep said about Severe Gear. Not saying it is the gospil.

Realized that the above link is not working. Sorry.
This is the filter I think might be new and improved, but I am not sure ?
Description from Mercury:
High efficiency, High performance synthetic media removes over 97% of oil contaminants versus 78% for conventional paper element filters.
Fits all MCM/MIE GM engines, except V-6 without remote oil filter
35-858004K Oil Filter $14.30

Wonder who makes it for them?

"Open letter to Mobil":

Thanks for the work you put into making 15W-50 Silver Cap a product I have experimented with and feel is showing promise to be one of the best synthetics out there for the money in this viscosity range. ($6/qt at Wallyland in qts.)

The improved viscosity and increased anti-wear additives I am sure will make this a great "offroad" application product.

I think is is probably going to show up as being somewhere between REDCAP.....and GOLDCAP.. in terms of actual performance.

...PS....I am crushed that you messed with my REDCAP which was a simply an unbeatable product due to it's GrpIV basestock. I am guessing that SilverCap is a GRP III/IV blend or GRPIII only with viscosity improvers and more ZDDP than GOLDCAP?

Any chance we can get basestock and antiwear additive levels put on the label?

Also,,,,do not mess with V-Twin 20W-50...please?


Thanks,

Hydro

I new in the end V-twin was best....at least for my 38'Cig...:drink:

Thanks for all the info you've given in this thread !

Have some M 1 V-twin onboard a plane to Sweden.......

Have a nice boating season!

Amsoil Preferred Customer Discount w/o the Membership Fee?
 

I recall being told a while back via this site that the Amsoil Preferred Customer Discount was available with out the fee if you asked (nicely). I lost that information and now tried same but no go at Amsoil Corporate. They suggested that this might be a Amsoil dealer that offers this deal.

If you are out there please contact me via this thread or PM me. I am looking for the Series 2000 20W50 Synthetic Racing oil.

Thanks

The Preffered Customer membership is only $20 unless you want to go longer. You'll save about $30 just ordering one case of TRO.

I just went to go double check the price by the case and found out mine was expired. Just got mine re-up'd for 5 years. :D

I know earlier you said Amsoil 20/50 2000 was equal to Redline but what about Redline being Ester stock and Amsoil being primairly a PAO stock with a little Ester???

My membership gets paid for with the savings on the first 5 gallon bucket of drive oil, after that it's a bonus. :cool:

I use rhe Redline shock Proof drive oil and only need a few gallons/year of the Amsoil 20W50. After shipping and the membership cost I might as well just pay the same money and get the Mobil1 V Twin oil. So my inquiry still stands.

So I got an oil analysis back yesterday. 3.3% fuel. This oil was in the boat for storage over the winter, but only had about 11 hours of run time. Wear was a little higher than normal, but the big problem is the fuel.

Should I be worried, considering this oil sat all winter?

What the hell would cause so damn much fuel to get in the oil? Where does it come from? I just did a complete tune-up and rebuilt the carb. Motor is stock. Jets in carb are stock. Everything is stock. Plugs look fine after running at idle. Is there something i'm missing?

Possibilities might include:
too rich (Carb) (But your plugs look Good so probably not)
rings, (lots of blowby).
Do you run a blower?
Carb flooding when sitting leaking fuel. (float)

Too rich was my initial thought. But stock motor, stock jets, fresh carb rebuild (although that wasn't until spring), and the plugs look good so i don't think it's too rich.

rings are a possibility, but the motor only has 140 hours on it since a rebuild. There is definitely some blowby, but i'm not sure if it's a lot for a marine BBC, i'm thinking these motors are put together fairly loose because they're run so hard.

no blower

carb flooding while sitting or leaking fuel into the intake would explain the high reading over the winter. There didn't seem to be any obvious problems when i pulled it off in the spring to rebuild it though. If the fuel goes away next sample i guess that points to the carb.

How much fuel in the oil is normal? Any at all?

One of the issues is the oil was "used" and there was never an oil analysis before storage, so you don't know if the oil was contaminated before storage or during storage. (Point for changing oil before storage).
You may have had some "washdown" from the fuel weeping by the rings during storage and taking the oil with it. This may lead to some surface rusting of the "washed" sections of cylinder bore and perhaps the corosponding area of the rings.
Do you have an oil temp gauge? if you do, how hot is the oil getting? If the oil is too cool the contamination won't burn off. It will just build up in the oil.
When you change your oil, you should keep a retained sample of the new oil you are pouring into the motor and when you do you next oil analysis send in both the new retained sample and a sample of the used oil. Why? The retained sample will give you a base line of the oil that you can compare to the used sample. I think you would want to know how YOUR oil held up and not compared to X number of other brands.
Next time you store the boat, turn the gas off and run the carb dry. At least you will eliminate the fuel draining from the carb issue.

Ken

I did change the oil before storage. changed it in the water and ran the boat probably 10 minutes at idle to get to the launch ramp and haul it out. Then I put about 11 hours on it in the spring before the oil change. The sample I took when changing the oil before storage showed 0.8% fuel.

I do have an oil temp gauge. The oil wasn't getting very hot at all last season, especially near the beginning and end of the season when the water was cold. I've since added an oil thermostat, now I see steady 180°-200° oil temps when running.

Is some fuel in the oil normal with a carb'd boat motor? How much should I be worried about? Blackstone says <3.0% is what it "should be" but i'm thinking 3% is pretty high.

Hydro,
Do you still recommend the 15/50 EP gold cap for a pleasure boater with stock HP500 carb motors that runs pretty hard?? or is the silver cap 15/50 good enough?? The gold cap is much harder to get. The motors have almost 300 hours on them.

Typicaly less than 1% would be more normal. So .8% is excellent very typical. Glad you did the analysis before storage? Now you have a better idea of what caused the elevated numbers.
Not to say you do not know what you are doing, but is the rebuild up to spec? Float level, bad needle and seat? Piece of dirt stuck in the seat for the needle? Choke sticking?
Ken

When it comes to carburetors I would be one of the first to say I don't know what I'm doing! But seriously, I followed the instructions in the clymers manual to the tee. There were only a few adjustments, float level and drop, choke pull off, and one other thing, and I was pretty confident that I did everything correctly. The float level should be fine, unless the specs in the clymers manual are inaccurate. The old needle valves and seats looked good, but I did replace them. The rebuild kit for the weber carbs is pretty complete... for $100 it should be! I even put the floats in a pan of fuel and verified that they float before reassembling the carb.

Two more questions, a little more generic... is it "normal" to burn some oil? I don't burn any when cruising around normally, but when I open it up it burns a bit.

Also, what are "normal" numbers to see for a marine engine on a blackstone labs test report? My report says "elevated" or "slightly elevated" wear in a few categories. Does that mean more than a typical marine engine, or more than a typical modern car engine? I would expect more wear than a car engine to be the norm for a marine engine.

In theory, engines shouldn't burn any oil, but in the real world some do. what's acceptable? That depends on who you talk to. I would imagine if you can see the oil smoke out the tail pipes thats not acceptable. Spek to service guys at car dealers they will probably say 1 qt/1000 miles is ok.
If you are seeing oil consumption and higer speeds it is oil getting past the rings. Higher speed=higher oil temps=thinner oil=more consumption. Fuel dilution doesn't help at all.
Ken