mercury oil to synthetic oil chaingeover

[popeyebob]

In a recent thread,I asked about pennzoil synthetic.The reply's I have gotten is it is an excellent product,but there were concern's about mixing it with exsisting gas/oil mix in the tank causing gumming,and problems.Tell me if this is a valid test.I pulled a sample of mix from my tank that was mercury tcw3/gas.I put it in a nice clean,clear Jose Cuervo bottle that I had empty'd and cleaned and dry'd.Then I added a shot of the pennzoil synthetic,and shook it up.It mix'd well,and I have it setting here,looking at it.How long would you expect for gum,separation to happen??Do I want it to be in a dark place,or light.Do I need a larger volume?I want to have an accurate test,as I would like to run the pennzoil,and dont really want to clean the tank.Any suggestions??(Jay Smith??)

[Jay Smith]

Popeyebob,
Look like a winner to me ,I would just run your tank as low as I could to keep the dilution ratio to a minimum!

Good luck,
Jay @ JSRE

[Mark C.]

Popeyebob -

This is probably a stupid question, but can't you just siphon out the old gas in your tank? I recently did this myself because I'm changing to the Pennzoil synthetic and it got most of it out. Then I loosened the mounts of the tank (22 gallon aluminum) on one side and tilted the tank a little to run the rest of it into a corner and siphoned that out too. Hardly a drop left. Some of the old gas/oil is going into the weedeater, and some is going into an old outboard I use for fishing.

[Arizona Hotboater]

No need to worry. Forget the test on this combo, fill your tank and hit the water. The prior owner of my boat ran Merc oil. There were 5 gallons of fuel/oil in the boat when I got it and I added Penzoil Synthetic. No gumming, no problems. This applies to "Merc to Penzoil" only. Some other combos may gum up. I have no experience with other combos. I guess you could look at it this way, if the stuff wont gum up in a bottle in 24hrs, it wont gum up in your tank if you burn it all the same day you fill up.

Also, anyone use the el cheapo Lubrimatic TCW3? A friend uses it for sub-7000 rpm use. Says no oil related failures and this stuff has almost no smoke/smell. I dont intend to use it but I was curious.

AZH

[mwarjone]

I usually just pull the fuel return line from the motor and hot wire the pump. When it begins to suck air I pour a gallon of the new mix in the tank to flush/purge the system. No problems thus far...

[Ron V]

Marc, I go even cheaper yet. Walmart Super Tech. $6.86 a gallon. And I go through the gallons too in the summer, so there is a big difference in cost. Run it in everything. No problems. Have always run the non-OEM oils almost all of the time. Occasionally I'll run a gallon of Quicksilver Premium through it if I get it for Christmas or something, but even then I just dump it right in the VRO tank with the Super Tech. Have switched brands, mixed brands, run every kind of oil there is, never decarboned a motor until this spring when I did it for the hell of it, and no problems. Even ran JCPenney oil when they sold it. Don't know who bottled it for them but the motor we ran it in is still together 15 years later and running like new. And that motor has a LOT of hard hours on it. My V-4 is probably already at 200 hard hours and is fine. Plugs and compression are perfect. The only oil we stayed clear of was Kleen-Test when Alco was selling it years back. That tended to congeal.

If I had something like a brand new ProMax I'd probably run OEM oil or a synthetic just to be safe. But for now the Walmart stuff is good enough for me.

[Markus]

Whether the synthetic oil will mix well or not depends on the base stock used in the synthetic oil. I have mixed Itasca with mineral oil with no problems, but I have been told that Amsoil, which I think is ester based requires purging the fuel system

[Dewey]

I am currently running Klotz and have been happy for years, but the availability of a good synthetic at Walmart is appealing. Anybody know what type of base Klotz uses? I'd rather not purge the tanks if I don't have to.

Bill