Odalisque - October 6, 2004 Log

Log 2004 – October 6th

Wednesday October 6, 2004 – “Water in the Engine Oil”

I was certain of our diagnosis that water from our flooded cabin caused raw salt water to get into the engine oil feeds. I decided to call Don of Moyer Marine to ask him what remedial actions needed to be taken. Don rebuilds Atomic 4’s and sells parts for same so he knows everything about this engine. His suggestions included: 1 – drain the watery oil from engine; refill with SAE 10- 30 , run 5 minutes an drain, repeat 3 times; prime each cylinder with Marvel Mystery Oil; then refill with 30 weight oil of your choice. 2 – when winterizing engine drain last oil, add 1 quart Mystery oil to oil reservoir and some squirts into cylinders, start engine for 30 seconds or less as it should be smoking. 3 – when recommissioning just add oil. All of that advice was free. I love Moyer Marine. Also Don relieved me in that he didn’t say that this was a terrible thing if we discovered it quickly and fixed it even if we had run the engine with the sea water in the oil.

I left NYC and headed to Long Island to pick up my 12 volt electric oil pump and bought enough oil to do the job. We should probably get some kind of had pump that will work as a backup but I much prefer the electric variety. If we do more cruising we will want to get the backup pump but for now we have little left of this season and very little cruising done at all. This season was mostly repairs: water pump, thermostat, aft chain plate and now water in the engine oil. I bought a case of 10W 30 cheaper oil and a few quarts of Rotella T 30 and some Mystery oil, dropped in on my 86 year old mother for lunch and was on the boat by 1600.

It was a perfect October day to be sailing on the sound; light but real winds (1- 15), high tide, crystal clear with a warm sun with temperatures almost 70 out of the wind. There were only a handful of mostly sailboats out taunting me with their full sails and light heel angle, but I had work to do.

No sooner had John, the launch operator, dropped mo off with my gear and my oil I set about taking apart the companionway steps so as to have access to all the engine parts I would need. Memory told me that my little pump can take a half hour to fully suck the engine oil out and I needed to get this started, pronto. By comparison, it takes less than 5 minutes to fill the engine with oil.

The first suck out took a long time as the emulsified water and oil had a gray appearance on the pumps transparent tubes, and the mixture was engine block temp having not started it up first in order to not spread it around or heat it up ( and breakdown the emulsification that had occurred). I watched sections of the tubing in the strands of afternoon sunlight that came in the cabin and danced around as the boat played in the breeze and waves. I knew there were other tasks to be done so I readied the sail cover, which we had left off the last time out. While putting on the sail cover I realized that our aft Dutchman cut out had no she string to lace it up. I thought: “What a perfect task to do while I wait for the sound of air bubbles in the oil pump.” I rummaged through the tool drawer looking for the purple string one of us had used to lace up the forward Dutchman slot. I found the small cardboard boxes that had spare light bulbs and other things stuck together from being immersed in salt/bilge water. The whole drawer needs to be emptied and reassessed as to what may still work or not.

I could not find the purple twine, which was not where I remember leaving it, but I found some suitable thin line that I cut and burned the ends of. The sail cover now had two laces for the Dutchmen cutouts as it was supposed to. Next I decided to use some duct tape to tape over the Danforth anchor on the foredeck that was chafing one of our hawser lines. I also taped the minor chafing on the hawser. What next? The sound of air bubbles being sucked out by the pump drew me back to my primary job at hand.

When sucking the oil out of the engine, particularly when it is really dirty or contaminated with water, one has a tendency to try to suck as much as possible at the end, even though it is coming out more slowly. You may think you are sucking out the bottom of the oil pan and this a good thing but had 3 gallons of oil to put in (and suck out) so I couldn’t wait for only air to come out. I filled the engine with fresh (cheap) oil and anxiously started up the Atomic 4. It purred to life with a little more stability than it had with water in the oil. I ran the engine for 5 minutes and began draining the first flush.
The new oil was quite murky but clearer than the last tainted batch was. It takes about a half hour to drain 4 quarts of oil from the A4 with the Sure—Flo pump I have and I don’t remember what I did while waiting unless it was admiring the afternoon and the sun and the sea, and having a cigarette. Matt had asked me to try the fuse for our bilge sensor, but I had no interest in that as the engine oil was my focus.

I started the engine after draining nearly 2 gallons and I noticed some smoke coming out of the stern exhaust even though the oil was running cleaner than before. While draining the second flush I remembered Don Moyer’s advice about putting Mystery oil in each of the piston chambers, I carefully loosened each spark plug in succession and squirted 3 or 4 squirts of Mystery oil, away from the manifold. Once I had filled the 3rd gallon of oil I was curious to see how much smoke would come from the exhaust from the oil I put in the chambers. It was smoky all right but soon burned off and our Atomic 4 was sounding almost as good as it ever had. The time was nearly 1830 and the last launch drive John would make that night would be 1845 so I got ready to get off Odalisque, taking with me only the tainted oil and my extra jacket. The sun had fallen below the Bronx and an amazing neon sunset was above me as I looked west. I called John at 1840 and we marveled at the beautiful spectacle that is the end of the day or the beginning of night as he motored me in to the dock.
The watery oil would have to ride around for a bit in my trunk until I could find a place to dispose of it. After draining each gallon of oil into the pump, I reversed the direction of flow on the pump and filled the empty quart bottles with the tainted oil, so the oil would not leak all over my trunk. Environmental regulations on Long Island have been tightened so although almost any gas station should be able to take the used oil they will not accept the used oil at Steppingstone. I would have to wait until I got back to Jude Thaddeus in Glen Cove.

There was one more oil change to be done and then the Moyer Marine recommendation is to run it for 5 or 6 hours, presumably to get the oil hot enough to loosen any emulsified water in the nooks an crannies of the engine oils course. That will be another entry.

— Caleb Davison