Synthetic or not…Oil question of the week

[dane]

Hello everyone,
I’m in the process of bringing a 18 HP 1961 Johnson FDL-15 back to life.
The plan for this outboard is to be used often, mostly in the river behind my home, but it will also see a good amount of lake time.
Wanting to keep this fine old Johnson running as long as possible would you recommend I stick with good quality petroleum oil or go to a synthetic keeping the mix at 24:1?
I would love to keep this engine going for years to come.
For what it’s worth, at the moment I have two bottles of Quicksilver TCW-3 premium 2-stroke oil.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge of these fine old outboards.

Dane

[amuller]

I would use the oil you have at 24:1. When that’s used up try some synthetic and see if you think it smokes less or has other advantages.

[cajuncook1]

Agreed keeping the 24:1 ratio. Like Amuller stated use up with what got, then find a good synthetic that meets TCw3 oil standards. The synthetics smoke less, less ash/carbon deposits and are more environmently friendly. They breakdown easier in the environment.

[garry-in-michigan]

That is a full jeweled powerhead (Roller bearings on the wrist pins) You could run a full synthetic (Amsoil) at 40 to 1 and it will run forever. . . 😎

[dane]

Thank you all!
I’ll give synthetic a try.
It’s much easier to find in my area.

[garry-in-michigan]

One word of caution, The full synthetic is a superior oil. So good you cannot break in an engine with it. It is designed to be environmentally friendly and therefor breaks down over time. For that reason it is no good for long time storage. Fog with a regular oil for long time storage. . . 😉

[frankr]

quote Garry in Tampa:

One word of caution, The full synthetic is a superior oil. So good you cannot break in an engine with it. It is designed to be environmentally friendly and therefor breaks down over time. For that reason it is no good for long time storage. Fog with a regular oil for long time storage. . . 😉

Not sure about this, but I think I just lost a motor for that reason (storage with full synthetic and not fogged). And I’m a big believer in full synthetic too. Disclaimer: I haven’t torn the suspect motor down yet to see what happened for sure. But the roller bearing sure screeched when I started it up.

[george-emmanuel]

I agree on the storage issue of synthetics. I had a 9.9 1976 OMC as an auxiliary on my sailboat. I used Amsoil because the early 9.9’s when used as auxiliary’s on non-planing hulls had fouling issues and were problematic. The Amsoil made a huge difference and I never noticed any sticking because we used the boat every weekend. But there came a time when our kids were involved in High School activities that the boat would sit maybe for 2 months. It was then I started having sticking issue. It wasn’t severe, but could have been if left for longer periods of time.

[fisherman6]

I do not have any proof of this theory either, but also agree with it. I run primarily synthetics and ethanol free gasoline in my motors all season. For winter / long term storage I run them on conventional TCW3 at 8:1 mix and fog them as I run the fuel out of the carburetor. So far that works well for me.
-Ben

OldJohnnyRude on YouTube

[RICHARD A. WHITE]

Almost all my motors I run are bushing motors…. hope this is not an issue….. As I run full synthetic in them

http://www.richardsoutboardtools.com
classicomctools@gmail.com

[Author]

Posts