Bio degradable

[woodbutchergraham]

Has anyone any info on bio degradable two stroke oil. I m off to Lane Annecy for my holls his year and taking the 40+, Not wishing to cause an international incident and a enviromental desaster as the french may claim "I must comply with their regulations". I have found oils that fit with this spec TC-W3 but has anyone experience of use with Seagulls and use at 10:1

[Collector Inspector]

Hmmm

NO Oils are what you would term "Bio_Degradeable" It is just the efficiency as to how they burn up during the combustion process.

HEY! Any laws or regulations are NOT retrospective in any way shape or form. (You will have to comply with fuel spill when tickling so bring something to catch tickle juice in like a can etc)

Enjoy Old Dears, Mix what you think is the best thing!

Some USA and Canadia water ways insist on 4 Strokes but!

Down under, no crap like that is enforced, except fuel spill etc..............

Regards

B

[atoyot]

Hmmm

NO Oils are what you would term "Bio_Degradeable" It is just the efficiency as to how they burn up during the combustion process.

The scientific community might disagree on that definition of biodegradeability. Surely the cleaner burning the motor oil, the less ends up in the water though a significant amount of raw fuel/oil mix goes through the engine completely unburned. That gets left to whatever action may occur within the microscopic food chain. The ability of bacteria and stuff to eat at least some of the compounds in a substance such as oil, is a biological degredation of the material to whatever limited extent that it actually occurs. I believe that's where the hope for an oil that's truly biodegradeable arrives.

How well must something break down into harmless compounds before it's deemed truly biodegradeable? I don't know, but in the strictest or more prevalent definition of 'biodegradeability', the Inspector's probably right about no (petroleum) lubricants being biodegradeable.

I used a Castrol brand product that claimed to be "biodegradeable, synthetic 2-stroke oil" but the only place I found it, stopped selling the stuff. For what it's worth, it smelled a little better than most oils i've used other than castor oil.

Speaking of which - looking at the chart on this page, it looks as if a vegetable-based oil i.e. castor bean oil (such as Castor927) may be your choice for "biodegradeable" oil provided you aren't going to use it forever : http://www.substech.com/dokuwiki/doku.p ... 059ecded41

I've used Castor927 in some air-cooled outboards and it worked quite well - though the motorbike community seems concerned about carbon build-up over time in their hot-running engines... hence, my reservation about using that stuff in a cool-running outboard for any vast period.

Is anyone out there able to comment from direct expeience, running castor bean oil in a Seagull for a significant period of time (a season or more) ?

-ted

[chris]

wouldn't beans cause a farting sensation with use

[Rob Ripley]

... castor bean oil (such as Castor927) may be your choice for "biodegradeable" oil provided you aren't going to use it forever :

Does my D48108 exceed the the limit where you used the term 'use it forever'?

[atoyot]

... castor bean oil (such as Castor927) may be your choice for "biodegradeable" oil provided you aren't going to use it forever :

Does my D48108 exceed the the limit where you used the term 'use it forever'?

Beats me. What is a D48108?

The caveat was offered only because I don't personally know the long term effects of using the reletively gummy castor oil in a low-temp, water-cooled 2-stroke environment as a fuel mix lube rather than as, say, crankcase oil in a tractor. A 4-cycle engine doesn't run the risk of growing a mountain of carbon on the cylinder head from unburned oil (usually), nor of clogging up the exhaust ports with the same. Is that machine mentioned a 2-stroke, water-cooled outboard engine?

I ran a healthy 40:1 mix with castor in my perfectly good 1974 Evinrude 4hp for a few months and what do I know? I'm on the way thru the very choppy inlet to the ocean when a connecting rod broke and slammed that puppy down in a microsecond. It could have been unrelated in any way, though I don't know that.

If i knew of people successfully using that stuff in their Seagulls year after year, I'd do it as well and would also recommend it without reservation. For as little as I run an outboard engine, the cost is not discouraging.

Anyone using castor oil in their Seagulls?







-ted

[Rob Ripley]

... Beats me. What is a D48108?

A 102 same as my AC860. It was a weak attempt at suggesting that some Seagulls, still motoring well past their 'use-by' date and thus (as proven by their age) able to injest any of the new fangled oil/petrol mixtures with ill effect.

[atoyot]

... Beats me. What is a D48108?

A 102 same as my AC860. It was a weak attempt at suggesting that some Seagulls, still motoring well past their 'use-by' date and thus (as proven by their age) able to injest any of the new fangled oil/petrol mixtures with ill effect.

Oh, I don't know, it was a good point once I look at it clearly. My ignorance as to the model series not withstanding, it does seem promising that if these things can last this long on whatever oils were prevalent through the ages, they ought to just thrive on the superior engineering of today's lubricants (especially at the recommended mixtures).

I've used castor oil in two air-cooled outboards. One marketed by Sears used a Tecumseh power head similar to those on Lawn Boy lawnmowers and was a real nice sailboat kicker. That block got very hot and just loved castor oil. The other, still in inventory, is a Cruise n' Carry made by the Hawaii Motor Corp. in the '80s. That one uses basically a concrete saw engine and sounds like a chain saw when running at speed. Again, a high temperature engine. Noise or no, I keep that in it's original canvas carry bag up forward in the "hold" as a spare, being as it only weighs around 6kg soaking wet.

Both of those two air-cooled engines use a 25:1 mix so there's plenty of goo potential in there. Perhaps some day someone will put in their experience with castor lubricants in fairly cool-running engines such as our Seagulls.

[phil]

From what I have heard castor oil does not store very well especially when mixed with gasoline for 2 stroke mix. Do you like cleaning fuels tanks, filters and carbs? Or are you motivated/dedicated enough to purge your entire fuel system after every use? It was often the oil of choice for racing using an alcohol mix, but then racing IS a high maintenance situation.
Haven't seen any for sale around here for years in any case. Probably have to mix your own or talk to the model airplane folks.

[woodbutchergraham]

Thanks for all the posts looks like i may have to experiment with this castor stuff. It dose however seem quite alien to consider the oil burning Seagull in the same context as environmental issues. I was hoping that other countries inflicting greater restraints on the use of the two stroke engines use that this problem and its use in the “older engine “would be sorted . Looks like in the short term could be feasible but I have reservations, that is as the whole world turns green we as Seagull users my have to Secom to alternatives to the mineral two stoke used at present by most of us in the UK.

There is a lot of discussion around the subject on hot running two strokes such as air cooled brush cutters and lawn mowers. But its in the super cooled world of marine engines and especially at 10;1 mix that I have a problem finding any supporting information.

[atoyot]

From what I have heard castor oil does not store very well especially when mixed with gasoline for 2 stroke mix. Do you like cleaning fuels tanks, filters and carbs? .... Haven't seen any for sale around here for years in any case. Probably have to mix your own or talk to the model airplane folks.

Agreed, it's a high-maintenance risk and it separates from fuel at temperatures below which I'll ever sail That said, since it mixes well with alcohol it might do fine with this "E-10" (10% ethanol) that I get stuck using. But not if anyone's ever experienced bearing damage or wall scuffing etc. due to this lube. And no, I don't want to have to do a virtual tear-down every week or two. How about running some regular mix through it once in a while to wash it out?

Availability is no problem, as a local motorbike shop stocks this stuff in abundance -




Thanks,

ted

[woodbutchergraham]

Thanks Ted, do you use ethenol mix in your Seagull? if so hos the performance. I am aware that ethenol based fuels burn cleaner but its new to me on cold two strokes.

[atoyot]

Thanks Ted, do you use ethenol mix in your Seagull?....

Hi there.

Here in the states we have two options for petrol: E-10 which contains up to 10% corn liquor. The theory is that it helps the rest of the fuel contents to combine with oxygen ("burn more efficiently") and therefore offer up less pollution, all other factors being equal. Other chemicals were used for a long time but they started getting into ground water and are highly carcenogenic, plus in theory, one can get ethanol from many different means besides invading other peoples' countries. Another topic for another day.... In cars, a slight loss in mileage was experienced when we went from prior "oxygenated fuels" to E-10 but since this is now the status quo, there's noting to compare it to except for the next item. I don't know if the fuel sold in marinas are E-10 or if they're straight petroleum fuel but since the lions' share of outboard operators I've seen get their fuel at lower cost while on dry land, E-10 is the common fuel used. The problem with E-10 is that, besides alcohol dissolving old fuel lines, it absorbs moisture quite readily and once it does that, the CH3CH2OH likes to separate along with the H20, from the rest of the batch. Then, since the fuel intake on your fuel tank is typically on the same level as the separated goo, the goo gets nicely sucked into the carbeurettor and it's passages, et al. Oh, and as a side note, the engine might quit on that account, the probablity of it happening being proportionate to ones' distance from shore, the severity of the fast-approaching cold front, or the tonnage of a container ship only a mile away up channel.

The second choice is E-85 the properties of which you may have now guessed. That stuff is 70 - 85% ethanol and just enough regular petrol to promote ignition, especially upon cold engine start. Vehicles have to be rated to use this stuff partly because of the need for fuel line components that don't dissolve in it, and, the engine computer and sensors have to swing widely enough to adjust to different parameters... that is, the modern auto engine self-tunes itself many times per second (ignition timing, injector spray timing and duration, etc etc) to account for load, fuel quality, air temp and altitude for starters). People seem to get from 10% to 20% worse mileage with E-85 compared to E-10. I've never tried this stuff in any outboard, modern or old, for the reasons under E-10 (mostly fuel line/carb parts longevity). I'd like to try some just as an experiment, but not with my engines.

There is a third choice which I have used in the past for a couple of years running when I could get the stuff for nothing: Aviation fuel, or what we call 100LL - 100 octane, low-lead. Mind you, "low" lead in the aircraft industry means something different from motor fuels. I'm told, true or false, that today's LL avgas has as much tetraethyl lead in it as did American petrol back when they all had lead in them, up to the late 1970's-early 1980's. All that aside, every engine I've ever had since getting back into sailing 5 years ago (and there's been a lot of horse-trading in that department) loved avgas! Each one would idle more smoothly, actually smelled a little better. All in all, it's a bit diferent mixture apart from today's auto fuels and there are too many aircraft that still require the lubricity of lead or lead dust for it's valves, not to mention the high octane requirements of very high compression engines. I'm pretty sure that the slowest running that I've ever had my 40+ under, as seen in a Youtube video, was obtained on some leftover 100LL mix.

Back to the original question which included the queery as to whether E-10 burns cleaner in our water-cooled engines. Who knows, but irregardless of fuel, a significant quantity of fuel (fuel + OIL) goes from one side of the cylinder straight out the other and into the water during the exhaust cycle, so whether it burns cleaner or not is kind of superfluous. One has to first accept that we're throwing s#it right into the water with these old bastards. I had a 4-stroke 2hp Honda up to 2 months ago, but it doesn't have the power to get out of its own way in the waters I prefer, if there's a headwind, and there's no 4-stroke that I can afford or which is light enough for my boat, or, which will survive going fully submerged if I really mess up. So I guess it's eat my consience or just get-over-it, and run as little as reasonably necessary and try to use an oil that will... eventually... break up or get eaten by bacteria in the wild, if such actually exists.

I don't know if i could compare performance between E-10 and non-E-10 unless marinas in fact sell non-alcohol fuel and I were to go get some. Avgas certainly runs smoothly but remember always, higher octane does not provide any more energy than lower octane; it's the higher-performance engine that requires the higher octane, that performs so well. Putting premium in most automobiles (or outboards) is just throwing money into a rat hole, which is why I don't use 100LL any more. Free was good.

-ted

[woodbutchergraham]

Thanks for that Ted,
May be that’s the way the UK could go if Green brigade get their way, in the long term the low octane grade of fuel isn’t a problem for Seagulls. However the inclusion of other alian additives to domestic petrol could be. May be this is where the Chemical crunchers on this site may be able to help.
Back to my original request will bio degradable oils degrade My Seagull?
By the sound of it who knows, but the future of our beloved little engines could be in jeopardy without some research on this area.

[atoyot]

... Back to my original request will bio degradable oils degrade My Seagull?
By the sound of it who knows, but the future of our beloved little engines could be in jeopardy without some research on this area.

I'll give you an opinion which, like so many body parts, all of us have one and they're not always pretty. Whatever we have today in outboard oils, they've got to beat lubricants of the 1930's up through the 1980's (the earlier, the more so). I'm under the impression that your common, generic store brand of auto engine oil is no worse than the "premium" high grade oils of the pre-1980's stuff due to some long strides in chemical engineering that ocurred after that time.

For what it's worth, I think the research has already been done in so far as an established standard for 2-stroke watercraft engine oils. It's called TC-W3 which you've seen all over by now. How many generic outboard oils back in 1965, for instance, could have boasted that they're suitable for proper combustion when mixed with petrol, contain little or no ash so as to prevent cake buildup or plug fouling at low cylinder head temperatures, and will flow into bearing crevases at perhaps only 10-20 degrees C above ambient temperature? Land-based, air-cooled engines can use this stuff but aren't required to, because they burn hot enough to take care of some of those issues and yet, I bet even they're better than good outboard oils of the period prior to, say, 1985.

Mind you, I can't quote any good sources for this info; I've just read up on this over the years and have retained bits and pieces that one might want to consider when shopping for stuff such as outboard oil.

In other words, if it's rated for watercraft at all, it's probably better than fine.

-ted