10-30 is a bit thin for a marine engine. Mercury oil is 25w40. If you have
some space at your watering hole I would back the boat into the water and
run it in gear for about 30 minutes to load the engine and then drain the
oil and check it.


"r_d" wrote in message
roups.com...
A good question about ramped stupidity..



I have an 87 omc cobra stern drive. The engine has not run for 5 years
(until now). I basically replaced everything mounted on the outside of
the engine and got it running (well in fact). I ran it for a half hour
while checking the oil periodically. The oil on the dipstick was nice and
clean. After a while I looked into the valve cover and noticed the oil
coming off the rockers was milky (dipstick was clean and tan in color.?.).
After realizing that the dipstick does not actually go into the oil pan
but into a tube connected to the bottom of the pan, I shut down the engine
and immediately changed the oil. The oil was milky (like tea with a
little cream in it) but no free pooling water or foam and it did not smell
in any way (aside from the normal smell of oil). After changing the oil,
I restarted the engine and it still ran well with no unusual noises. Ran
if for an hour at different rpms, while periodically checking the oil
(blowing air into dipstick tube to make sure I am really seeing what the
oil looks like) and it was still clean. No water has shown up again.



The trip is that the boat has not actually been in the water for those 5
years.but on the trailer.so I guess it was condensate (was in Florida).
The engine fires right up, idles nicely, no smoke what so ever, runs at
the proper temp and produces 50psi oil pressure at 1,000 rpms on 10w30. I
do plan to change the oil after 10 hrs of operation and then back to the
normal once a season.



Anyway, the question- what should I look out for if there were any
potential problems starting and any suggestions to reduce the chance of
future problems. I have no reason to believe there will be future
problems but I was a little (a lot) panicked when I saw the milky oil.but
since the boat was not in the water, the water in the oil could not have
been salt water. So at least that is a positive.



Thanks for the help,

mark