Dirtiest looking gasoline motor oil i've personally seen

[Flyingdutchman]

During covid quaraintaine i decided to service my honda 20hp four stroke out board motor i bought used last year. Motor is from 2008 but was hardley used when i bought it. The seller told me it was used on a small dinghy which was placed on a larger vessel.

During the service i noticed that on a lot of bolts i had to still ''break'' the original threadlocker honda uses. Also the waterpump impeller was shot. Things like oil filter etc.. where all oem honda.
This got me thinking that probably in these 14 years the motor never had been serviced. Probably because they thought it didnt get used much so they dont need to stick to honda service interval.
After i bought it beginning last year i put about 100 hrs on it.

Oil came out black like it spend 20k miles in a diesel engine.

 

[Hermann]

One could the pic of that oil to set black levels on a TV.

 

[dlundblad]

My Jeep will do that to just about any oil in 5k.

 

[Kira]

It's good you serviced it.
What replacement oil did you use?

 

[Flyingdutchman]

It's good you serviced it.
What replacement oil did you use?

Yeah it was defintatly needed. I used oem honda 10w30 marine oil and filter.

I wonder how this oil got so dark. Looking into the valve cover the engine is clean inside. This engine is mainly used full throttle, that might sound hard on the motor but then it also has maximum cooling flow and its thermostat controlled so i dont see the engine oil being run at extremely high temps.

Maybe that is the problem, because it never gets really hot it does not get hot enough to evapourate the fuel dillution that gets into the oil while trawling/idleing. Although i am not sure if oil gets dark by fuel dillution.

 

[Kira]

14 year old oil....change it again in a year (assuming some use) and rethink the circumstances.
Next season take her out and cruise about at 70% throttle and enjoy.

You're at the ,"don't think too much" phase.

 

[Flyingdutchman]

14 year old oil....change it again in a year (assuming some use) and rethink the circumstances.
Next season take her out and cruise about at 70% throttle and enjoy.

You're at the ,"don't think too much" phase.

Yeah time does indeed contribute to it.
Honda manual calls for oil change every 100hrs or 6 months.
I will probably just do it once every winter, think twice a year is a little overkill.
I put around a 100 hrs a year on it.

 

[KJH]

Maybe its cause ive only ever driven used hunks of crap that had at least 100k+ miles on them when bought, but my oil is usually that black after 5k OCI for the first 30k miles or so. After a while it doesnt get that bad but an averagely maintained car in America (read, poorly maintained) oil will look like that from my experience.

Its a small outboard, wouldnt worry about it a bit. Once every year at spring thaw is what I do on my grandfathers old johnsons but I forget sometimes. Some people quite literally never change the oil on these things and they still typically run for years and years.

 

[VolkswagenFox21]

Isn't that normal? Old oil looks like that with every vehicle I've ever serviced. Even the FRS which I bought new and that gets 6m oil changes with usually anywhere between 2500 - 5000 kilometres of use.

 

[gathermewool]

The color of oil doesn’t mean anything. Just means the oil is working!

 

[xgmad]

looks like the the oil was well used.

That's what my jetta pulls out after around 5 to 7 k miles

 

[walterjay]

The oil is dirty but not to the extreme. Good you changed it.

 

[Revving2Redline]

I would fill it with spec oil and run it for 15 minutes to completely flush it clean. Then doing a proper oil change and filter swap,etc would be the way to attack this.

 

[football]

You bought it last year, put 100 hours on it without any maintenance? THEN decided to change the oil? That's pretty backwards from most bitog folks. I change the oil immediately on any new to me equipment or vehicles.

 

[CheezWhiz]

that's what my oil looks like after a fresh change and a 30 minute drive with 15 wacks on the old holley double pumper. America baby, woo-hoo!!!!!

 

[Flyingdutchman]

You bought it last year, put 100 hours on it without any maintenance? THEN decided to change the oil? That's pretty backwards from most bitog folks. I change the oil immediately on any new to me equipment or vehicles.

Yeah true, thought about servicing back then. But on the dipstick the oil looked pretty clean when i wiped it on a white rag and time flew by so fast

When i change oil on gasoline vehicles that oil useally comes out brownish looking, only on diesel vehicles i've seen it come out pitch black. Might also have to do with some additives that discoulour.

This is how the oil came out of the lower unit.

 

[Bailes1992]

I think I'd have chucked some cheap 15w40 in there, run it upto temp and drained it again for no other reason that my own OCD and getting as much of that 14 year old oil out as possible.

 

[Lubener]

I knew of someone who had to poke a screw driver into the drain plug hole to get the oil to drain.

 

[Gene K]

I knew of someone who had to poke a screw driver into the drain plug hole to get the oil to drain.

I've seen that before. Car came with SF conventional (Yes its been a while) and had 48,000 mi at the initial drain.

 

[TomYoung]

Yeah time does indeed contribute to it.
Honda manual calls for oil change every 100hrs or 6 months.
I will probably just do it once every winter, think twice a year is a little overkill.
I put around a 100 hrs a year on it.

This engine has been subjected to abuse. I would follow the mfr recommendations to the letter, or do better, to get that machine clean again. It's not overkill. Marine applications are not easy on oil. New engines are pricy.