stupidest mistake

Took the outboard out today,was rushing around.Went in town picked up
some seafoam,added it to the fuel.Got to the lake motored around,approx 10 miles.....
started fishing,,,then it hit me...crap(pg version)forgot to add oil to the fuel.
I wonder how much damage I did,I guess time will tell.
Not much I can do now is there??

Did manage a few fish,


Not going to sleep good now,guess I'll slap the oil to the fuel tomorrow add run her again.

Wow, count your blessings.... not too many motors I know of that would last through that. :shock:

You might still be okay. Since you hadn't gotten to the point of the motor stalling and whatnot, you may not have done any major damage. As long as you still have good compression I would probably squirt a little 2 stroke oil in the plug holes. I would drain the carb float bowl, and i would likely run the next tank of fuel a bit rich. Older 2 strokes will have a lot of oil build up to start with which helps, and many of the newer old motors (80s and newer) are fine on less oil than the 50:1 they are rated for short times. You may have gotten off with just a warning this time.

Zum said:

Took the outboard out today,was rushing around.Went in town picked up
some seafoam,added it to the fuel.Got to the lake motored around,approx 10 miles.....
started fishing,,,then it hit me...crap(pg version)forgot to add oil to the fuel.
I wonder how much damage I did,I guess time will tell.
Not much I can do now is there?

Not going to sleep good now,guess I'll slap the oil to the fuel tomorrow add run her again.

Click to expand...

Hey my friend we have all been there!!

If you added the seafoam, but forgot the TCW-3 oil, you might be ok. Seafoam does contain special blend of oils that do a variety of things for the motor. (It is not meant to take the place of the TWC-3 oil, but it does offer some lubrication.

You stated you went about 10miles. If there was no lubrication it would have seized up or overheated. Bassboy offered good advice regarding the oil additive.

Here is a copy paste of the information from the Seafoam website. I hope it makes you feel a little better.


Sea Foam Motor Treatment #’s SF-16 (16 ounce), SF-128 (gallon container) and SF-55 (a 55 gallon drum) is used as a fuel additive in Gasoline, Ethanol Blends, Gas/oil mixes & ALL Diesel fuels. This includes all brands and grades of available fuels.
When added to these fuels, Sea Foam Motor Treatment was specifically designed to safely do five (5) important tasks for you. They are:

1. Lubricates upper cylinders, fuel pumps, turbochargers, drawn-through superchargers, and related fuel system and exhaust system components. Sea Foam Motor Treatment is a 100% blended petroleum product. That means Sea Foam is OIL, so adding Sea Foam to ANY fuel adds lubricity to fuel system components and upper cylinder areas of your engine.
2. Dries fuel system moisture. Sea Foam Motor Treatment contains an oil component that acts as a co-solvent to effectively neutralize moisture when Sea Foam Motor Treatment is added to any of the above-listed fuels. This helps to eliminate moisture-related problems like diesel fuel gelling and rough idling.
3. Cleans gum & varnish fuel residues from fuel system components. Sea Foam Motor Treatment contains an oil-based high-detergent cleaner that liquefies old fuel residue and allows the contaminants to be filtered out in the manner designed by the engine manufacturer.
4. Cleans carbon deposits from combustion chamber. Sea Foam Motor Treatment’s exclusive formula is blended specifically to clean carbon out of the engine as the engine is run. This is accomplished by our cleaning oil formula described in #3 above, which dissolves the old sticky fuel residue that holds the carbon particles that accumulate over time. Once the varnish residue is liquefied, the carbon particles are free to be safely blown out of the engine through the exhaust system.
5. Stabilizes fuel. Sea Foam Motor Treatment adds volatility to fuel and slows down the rate at which that fuel loses its ability to properly burn. When added to fuel and the fuel is in properly sealed containers or fuel systems, Sea Foam Motor Treatment is a fuel stabilizer for up to 2 years. Always run the engine for a long enough period of time to assure the Sea Foam Motor treatment has been drawn through the entire system fuel system for complete protection.

Check your compression and see if everything is ok. My prayers are with ya!!!

cajuncook1

bassboy1 said:

You might still be okay. Since you hadn't gotten to the point of the motor stalling and whatnot, you may not have done any major damage. As long as you still have good compression I would probably squirt a little 2 stroke oil in the plug holes. I would drain the carb float bowl, and i would likely run the next tank of fuel a bit rich. Older 2 strokes will have a lot of oil build up to start with which helps, and many of the newer old motors (80s and newer) are fine on less oil than the 50:1 they are rated for short times. You may have gotten off with just a warning this time.

Click to expand...

I'm with him...

Nice fish BTW...I also forgot to add oil to my outboard tank once but I caught it quicker. I ran for about 10 minutes and have had any problems for several years.

Thanks for all the replies.
Canjuncook1,,,thats what I was thinking about the seafoam.
They never had the fuel one so I bought the transmission one(they say it's the same but color added to trans.)
It never had the directions for adding to fuel just trans.,power steering and hydralics./
I had drained last years gas,filled it with 16 liters(4 gal) and added approx half can of seafoam.(prop.high)
Still can't beleive I never added any oil///stupid.
Anyways have the plugs out and already drained the bowl.
Just going to put in about a teaspoon of oil in the cylinders and I'm not going to add that much
more oil to the fuel 40:1 at the most...figure the damage is done can't fix it by going to much over board.
Take her for a burn,I'll let you know how it turns out.
Thanks again for the replies.

i would listen to the crank area with the motor running. If you damaged any bearings you should be able to hear it with a stethascope or just a long screwdriver up to your ear

sounds like you made out pretty good tho!

Got to the lake today and man it was blowing.

It was all I could do to get off shore with the trolling motor.
I was like,o greay, gotta hop to the back try to start the outboard,keep the boat straight so i didn't blow on shore.
Anyways,she started right up,even with the oil I had put in the cylinders.
Started idling into the waves,decided to crack on,the waves were pretty high and pounding,ended up that my trolling motor came undone(dropped down) at almost full throttle...wasn't a good start but so far so good.
I didn't notice any different noise and even if there was a bearing job would be to much.

HMM I'LL HAVE TO TAKE THIS AS A GOOD REMINDER TO NEVER DO THIS MYSELF. TOO MUCH MONEY AND TIME SPENT ON MY EVINRUDE-

I've come close to doing that a few times. My standing rule now is that the oil goes in before the gas is added. As a double check I've got a tag on the handle of the gas can that says "Add oil". For someone as scatterbrained as I can be, it comes in handy.

The older I get the stupider I get,I guess.
Might have to start leaving myself notes as well.
I've been out ever day(going today as well)since the mistake and seems to be working fine.
Guess I got lucky,although I know it took some life out of her.

Whew! That's a relief. Glad to hear the motor seems to be ok. My cardinal rule is that the oil goes in before the gas, never the other way around. Although it's not hard to pick up a gas can and see it's low on gas, it's not that way with the little oil you add. My feeling is that if for some reason I forget to add the gas after adding the oil, about the worst thing that can happen is it fouls a plug and smokes like Mount St. Helens. If I forget to add the oil, well...

I don't add gas to my boat tank that hasn't already been mixed. I keep a separate can for gas/oil mix so that I get the ratio right each time, and top off the boat's tank from that. I did it to make sure I measured the ration correctly, but I can see that it helps me to remember to add the oil, too. Wouldn't work for a large boat, but for my little 5hp it works great.

Don't feel bad I did almost same thing 2 weeks ago. I had added sea foam to my fuel I did remember to put oil in but I lookd at the mark for Litre instead of gallons. I figured about 25% of oil I should have put in. Freaked out did compression test still had 120 psi on each cylinder. ( 1992 40 hp Johnson. ) I took my bottle and marked through all of the litre mark.

Used the outboard around 10plus times since...seems the same,although I didn't do a compression check.
Wouldn't have helped much anyways as I didn't check the compression when I bought the outboard years ago.
I still say the sea foam must have helped but not saying it that much because I don't want people trying stupid stuff.

I ran out of gas in May while on fishing trip. I was able to get gas, but it was straight gas. Had a little oil left over from filling my tank, but now I carry oil on my boat. I limped back to dock without damage.
Good luck.

Glad that you are ok. I have one of those outboards that was originally rated 100:1 on oil ratio but later changed to 50:1 - which I guess means that if you really have to you can be a little low on oil sometimes and get by ok. I always keep a pint of oil and some seafoam in a spray bottle just in case I need it, and I started toting along a little 2 gallon tank as a safety tank.

You dodged a bullet. I'm sure the previous build up and the seafoam helped so that is good. Just count it as a blessing and keep fishin'. If it had done any serious damage you would already know it.