Marine oil vs. Car oil?

What's the difference between the 2 other than price?

Time to try to suck the oil out of that itty bitty 1/4" dipstick tube and replace it with new stuff.

I don't think it matters but the engine is a 502 Mag.

Shouldn't matter, I plan on running Mobil 1 in my next oil change in a 2005 Yamaha outboard.

Lemme guess, the "marine grade" oil is twice the price? Don't fall for it...

GameboyRMH wrote: Lemme guess, the "marine grade" oil is twice the price? Don't fall for it...

Yes, but I was wondering if it had other additives since you usually don't use a boat as often as a car and it sits a lot.

http://forum.chaparralboats.com/index.php?showtopic=13471&p=173357

pres589 wrote: http://forum.chaparralboats.com/index.php?showtopic=13471&p=173357

Thanx for the link. Now to go see the price difference between Mobil 1 extended performance and "real" marine oil

Can I get cliff notes for that?

Enyar wrote: Can I get cliff notes for that?

No. If you want to learn something you've got to pay the price. Cliff notes leave out more than they leave in.

I read through 2/3 and got the impression that Mobil 1 would be fine but then I browsed through the comments and everyone was like, glad I used Mercury oil which confused me.

Enyar wrote: I read through 2/3 and got the impression that Mobil 1 would be fine but then I browsed through the comments and everyone was like, glad I used Mercury oil which confused me.

Yes, me too.

I ended up with marine oil because no one carried the Extended Performance except in 0-20 or 10-30.

I love how you can label something "marine" and charge twice the price.

Was at Dicks sports today to get a new pump for my bike and wandered through their watercraft section. Seems they sell the same waterproof boxes that West Marine has.. for half the price

The marine oil was less per quart than the Mobil 1 per quart, but they sold the Mobil 1 in 5 quart jugs and they didn't the marine oil that way. Unfortunately they didn't have the proper Mobil 1.

I bought me a drill powered pump to evacuate the oil from the boat motor. I got lucky and the guy at Lowes had done the same thing and knew all the right pieces to do it right. We went down to a 1/4" ice maker tubing which will go around all the bends. He'd tried bigger and it just wouldn't work.

He was also a walking billboard for all the different ways you could use it. I get to do this in the morning.

the only reason that marine oil might be special is that marine engines are designed to be run at peak power for long periods of time and the oil needs to be able to deal with that.. think of a speed boat more like a NASCAR Cup car running 200mph at Talledega for hours at a time and less like your daily driver Honda Civic at a sunday afternoon autocross..

that is true Nova. As my father, who was a Ship Engineer and a marine mechanic when he retired from the navy, has told me.. running a boats engine is like driving everywhere in 1st gear

Older marine 4-stroke applications use to run larger bearing tolerances. The reason was partly metallurgy - the forgings used for cranks and rods (as opposed to castings in most automotive versions) had larger expansion/contraction rates. Since many marine engines spend long periods of time at 80-90% load, the tolerances would become "correct" at full temps. The oils used were typically 20w50 or straight-weight 40 to accommodate the larger spaces.

These days, two things have happened: 1) improvements in casting metallurgy have made the requirement for forgings unnecessary, therefore 2) most marine engines use off-the-shelf automotive parts like cranks, bearings, pistons, rods, etc. Special care is often given to exhaust valves which are typically Inconel, but the oil requirements of the engine itself are much like you would use if that same engine were in a carbureted 1-ton truck that does a lot of towing.

The severe duty that the engine sees makes people want to use synthetic for its ability to "take the heat", but in truth most open cooling systems in boats (where the motor is directly cooled with water from the lake/ocean) the engine oil stays plenty cool. When you have constant access to fresh cool water, the heat load is easily dissipated. If you have a closed system (with glycol coolant and a water/water cooler) oil temps are more closely related to vehicle systems.

I ran 10w30 conventional oil in my 5.7 Vortec boat. 65 mph at 100% load for a half an hour would typically yield oil temps around 250F. I changed it at the end of each season.

As far as draining, they sell valves with nipples on them that replace the drain plug. I had one of those in my boat. I just stuck the hose out the bilge drain and opened the valve. Easier than my car. If I had kept the boat I would have considered a remote oil filter. The factory location was a bit of a pain.

... and I forgot...

Since marine engines don't conform to the same EPA regulations, the oils can (and sometimes do) carry different levels of additives like ZDDP, Sulfurs, etc.

Marine oils also have a few additives to help with water. Especially the lower unit oils in outboards.

curtis73 wrote: As far as draining, they sell valves with nipples on them that replace the drain plug. I had one of those in my boat. I just stuck the hose out the bilge drain and opened the valve. Easier than my car. If I had kept the boat I would have considered a remote oil filter. The factory location was a bit of a pain.

Drain plugs?

I can't find one and the boat dealer say they don't have one, hence the reason for the pump out the dipstick.

EDIT: You gave me hope so a friend and I went back out and put ourselves into all kinds of contortions to get our heads as far into the engine well below and along side the engine as we could and then we held hands from across the side and explored all kinds of nooks & crannies and this engine does not have a drain plug.

Which would have been nice because apparently the pumping method requires the oil to be hot & thin. It won't come up the pump so we've been trying to dilute it.

First we tried some diesel fuel since it's kinda oily, but we were afraid we'd ruin something if we go too much so we switched to power steering fluid since I had a lot of that. So far no luck.

I'd put a torch on the pan to try to gently heat it, but with my luck I'd start a fire.

For something that I thought we had all the room in the world to work on it, it sure can get tight down there.

carguy123 wrote: Drain plugs?

Yeah... its a bummer, but some marine oil pans don't have them. Fixing it is pretty easy with one of these, but it does require a bit of disassembly:

carguy123 wrote: Which would have been nice because apparently the pumping method requires the oil to be hot & thin. It won't come up the pump so we've been trying to dilute it.

That's an easy fix. Buy one of these and use it to run the engine for a while to get the oil hot:

carguy123 wrote:

curtis73 wrote:

Drain plugs? I can't find one and the boat dealer say they don't have one, hence the reason for the pump out the dipstick. I'd put a torch on the pan to try to gently heat it, but with my luck I'd start a fire.

OMG!!!!!! Do your family a huge favor and buy lots of life insurance before you light a torch in the bilge of a boat! You will quickly be dead and there will be plenty of room in the boat as it will have no hull.

Gasoline engined boats often explode just from a non-marine starter causing a spark. You don't even want to consider what would happen if you used a torch!!

Curtis73 I can't use one of them, it has the performance Bravo 1 with 4 little bullet hole inlets on the chin of the unit. Also I didn't want to run the engine with the old oil.

It did start flowing and I got the oil out. I put a few quarts of cheap oil back in and am letting it sit in case there's some old thick oil still left in there, then I'll pump it out again.

Here's an interesting twist. I was laying there looking at the alternator which says it's Merc alt with some sort of patent pending and it clearly says negative ground on the side, but when I moved the big red battery cable out of the way while we were searching for the plug, I found the big red cable is connected to the engine block by a big bolt. In other words, it's the ground!

I'm glad I noticed that or I would have hooked the new battery up wrong! I'm going to follow all the wires back before I hook up the new battery just to be safe.

I had a Saab Sonnet with a red cable ground. I ended up frying the electrics when I replaced the battery.

Rupert wrote: OMG!!!!!! Do your family a huge favor and buy lots of life insurance before you light a torch in the bilge of a boat! You will quickly be dead and there will be plenty of room in the boat as it will have no hull. Gasoline engined boats often explode just from a non-marine starter causing a spark. You don't even want to consider what would happen if you used a torch!!

It's been sitting for 2 years and the engine compartment has been off of it for days so I don't think that would be an issue, but it is a thought that entered my mind.

curtis73 wrote:

carguy123 wrote: Drain plugs?

Yeah... its a bummer, but some marine oil pans don't have them. Fixing it is pretty easy with one of these, but it does require a bit of disassembly:

Nah, I am getting the boat ready to sell. Funny thing tho, I've found I'm pathologically incapable of cutting corners. Everything I shop for I end up getting the right stuff instead of just using the cheap stuff.

Here's the boat in case you're interested.

carguy123 wrote:

curtis73 wrote:

carguy123 wrote: Drain plugs? Yeah... its a bummer, but some marine oil pans don't have them. Fixing it is pretty easy with one of these, but it does require a bit of disassembly:

Nah, I am getting the boat ready to sell so I'm not going to go to the trouble of pulling the motor just in install one when I don't need ti anymore. Funny thing tho, I've found I'm pathologically incapable of cutting corners. Everything I shop for I end up getting the right stuff instead of just using the cheap stuff. Here's the boat in case you're interested.