Trim Oil

[IanFS]

Hi Guys

Oildyne Plastic Reservoir.

I refirbed the pump housing and new solenoids recently and in doing so lost a little fluid. The Mercruiser manual suggests Quicksilver Power Trim Fluid, but 10-30w or 10-40w oil can be used instead.

I have some 5-30w Synthetic for my car, would that be suitable too? My thinking is that in 1988 when this was produced we didn't have 5-30w Synthetic so 10-30 or 10-40 was the choice. Am I correct?

 

[Don S]

Re: Trim Oil

You can probably use it, but I would sure drain the lines and the cylinders so you don't mix syn. and non syn oil.
I don't mean take the trim cylinders apart, just pump the oil out of the cylinder by operating the cylinder by hand and blowing out the lines.

 

[IanFS]

Re: Trim Oil

Thanks for your reply Don.

What will happen if you mix them?

 

[Don S]

Re: Trim Oil

I don't know, never tried it. It's just common knowledge that you don't mix different types of oil. If you wanted to add some 10x30 to 10x40 no big deal, but to go from non synthetic to synthetic, well that's two completely different types of oil.

 

[IanFS]

Re: Trim Oil

Hiya Don

This may be of interest to both you and the members.

Following your answers, I repeated to someone the other day that the two oils don't mix and was given the reply of "Rubbish, they are both made from crude and are compatible"

In order to prove this person wrong I looked it up and found statements from Exxon Mobil and Valvoline. Both stated that the Synthetic and ordinary oils are compatible. The main reason for not mixing them would be that Synthetic oil protects better, so by mixing in ordinary oil some of the extra protection would be lost.

Synthetic oil is ordinary oil that is Synthesised making it's molecules larger and the same size giving the properties of added protection, with some additives to help along the way.

I hope this is useful.

Kind regards
Ian