Oil Prices Slide as Summer Looms Closer

Oil Prices Slide as Summer Looms CloserAs the Associated Press is reporting, bulk oil prices have slid today to $116 a barrel. The news comes as the spring season enters the home stretch and Americans prepare for the summer – a season that is most popular for vacationing and leisure activities such as fishing and boating.

The decrease in oil prices was due to the end of a refinery strike in Scotland, which adds to the falling demand of oil, though gas prices are still averaging at $3.67 throughout the U.S.

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Take Our Boats Now

Take Our Boats NowTaking a cue from the shaky housing market, now might be a good time to purchase a boat.

With bulk oil prices fluctuating on an hourly basis, you can find people selling their boats on sites like Craigslist and local periodicals for value prices. While a recession collectively looms in the minds of Americans, it may be a good time to invest in your sea legs. Economic stimulus checks are in the mail and if you find yourself a bit more comfortable than most, it might not be such a bad idea to spoil yourself and get something nice to take your family out on.

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Escape the Crunch of Steep Oil Prices

Escape the Crunch of Steep Oil Prices

I think there’s this misconception that those of us who use boats recreationally have a pile of money buried beneath their mattress. I can’t say that I’ve ever had anything more than a stack of comic books and dirty laundry under my bed (when I was a kid), but I can tell you that a pile of money is something that I do not have.

Luckily, I can purchase a 16 gallon drum of Evinrude outboard motor oil for under $500 through domo-online.com. It’s a perfect buy for a budget-minded consumer and boat enthusiast such as myself. 16 gallons may not seem like much, but there’s realistically a few weeks out of the year that I can take my boat out, so it works out in the end.

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What is better? An I/O, an inboard, or an outboard? What’s cheaper?

Outboard MotorThe best answer is… It depends. I/Os are the often the least expensive, and you have the advantage of having a realtively car like (simple) installation. You can get to the engine pretty easily in most boats. The disadvantages are that the outdrive can’t tilt clear of the water, so if you boat in saltwater the aluminum outdrive is always submerged and subject to corrosion. Also, the rubber bellows that encloses the drive shaft, as it comes out of the boat and into the outdrive is usually at least partly submerged. A hole, or tear, in it can sink the boat.

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Get Your Oil Here!

THROTTLE UP JOINS THE SBIP/APBA OFFSHORE INSPECTION TEAM

Boat RacesKey West, FL, Super Boat International Productions Inc. is happy to announce that Throttle Up will be part of the inspecting team with SBIP/APBA Offshore. Starting with the Key West World Championship for the 2008 season. Throttle Up will be checking all of the propellers to make sure they meet the rule book Requirement. “Throttle Up brings to SBIP/APBA Offshore a great addition to our inspecting team, to take it up another level to have the best inspection team in offshore” said John Carbonell, President of SBIP / APBA Offshore “Throttle Up CNC Propellers would like to take this opportunity to thank the SBIP/APBA UIM for allowing us the opportunity to be the OFFICIAL, Propeller Inspectors for the upcoming Key West World Championship races as well as the upcoming 2008 Offshore Racing Season. We are pleased to be part of the Team of Professional Technical Inspectors of the SBIP/APBA UIM” said Matt Croce of Throttle Up Propellers.

Don’t forget your Evinrude oil!

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Why do we need outboard motor oil?

Evinrude:  Because She's Pretty

We put outboard motor oil in our engines to serve several purposes. First, obviously, oil acts as a lubricant. If your engine is operating correctly, there is almost no metal to metal contact – everything is riding on a thin film of oil. However, oil has several other important jobs to do. Oil circulates throughout your engine, and cools parts that cannot get near a water jacket. For example, it’s becoming common in sport bikes to spray oil on the underside of the piston to cool it. There are no water jackets at all in your transmission. Motorcycle transmissions are oil cooled.

Your piston rings do not do a perfect job of sealing. Some combustion by products will slip past the rings into the engine. This can be little particles of carbon. Remember, diamond is carbon that was combined under heat and pressure. These little carbon particles can be quite damaging to your engine. Another job of your oil is to hold these particles in suspension until the oil filter can grab them. Also, if your gasoline has sulpher in it (it does), this sulpher can react with water and oxygen to make sulphuric acid. This is some stuff that is seriously bad for your engine. Your oil has special ingredients in it called buffers to neutralize acids. Finally, your engine can get internal build ups of tars, waxes, and other gunk. Your oil has solvents to try to dissolve this stuff and get and keep your engine clean.

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Question

Synthetic OilI have a 99 merc 115 that has been on synthetic blend for as long as i’ve owned it i’m all out of the blend and was wanting to switch over to full synthetic outboard motor oil, my question is do i have to drain the existing blend remaining in the oil reservoir OR can i just start topping off the reservoir as i use up the oil, next i was wondering is if anyone has hooked up their trolling batteries up in parallel if so how did you do it and how does it work for a 12V motor- thanks!

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Shelf life of Oil

My friend Al, at the Evinrude Service Center says he is still using oil that he has stored in his garage for 8-10 years ….and it is still good. He stressed that you have to keep it free of any dirt, heat or moisture. So, getting a drum of bulk oil and taking 1-2 years to use it up should be no problem at all.

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Don’t Forget to Stir Your Oil

Waring Boat Motor Immersion MixerWhen you’ve got a drum of oil it’s a good idea to stir it from time to time and I’ve found a method that works alarmingly well. However, you have to do this with the lid on the 55 gallon drum or you’ll be wearing your oil. The way to do this is to cut as small a diameter circle as possible to fit the mixer through so you can stir the oil without throwing it. I’ve only tried this with the bulk Evinrude XD 50 oil as that’s the drum I bought.

Once you’ve got the small hole cut in the top of the lid just place the immersion blender in the hole, you can even rest the motor of the blender on the lid if you cut your hole right. Plug it in, flip the safety and pull the triggers for unattended operation. Then just let it sit. These things are ultrapowerful and, ironically, are known as boat motors! It’s just a giant mixer that moves at an incredible speed. Don’t let it run too long so it doesn’t overheat, but long enough to stir all the oil in the drum. It may need a couple of minutes to really get moving.

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The Many Benefits of Recycling

The Many Uses of Recycled Motor Oil

Oil BarrelRecycling used outboard motor oil keeps oil out of landfills and ensures that this oil is available for re-use, reconditioning, reprocessing or re-refining.

From a purely environmental point of view, the best thing that the motor oil consumer can do is to buy a longer-lasting oil. In that way, less used oil is generated in the first place.

Over 380 million gallons of used oil is recycled each year according to the U.S. EPA, which equates to over 50 percent of all motor oil purchased annually.

Currently, used motor oil can be re-used or recycled one of three ways-reconditioning, reprocessing or re-refining. It is important to note that each process can be important in helping to manage the overall volume of used motor oil in the U.S.

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Motor Oil Facts, Not Friction

High Performance Evinrude E-Tec Outboard Motor Using Evinrude XD 50

Evinrude XD 50 Continues to Lead the Industry in Cost-effective Innovation

NEW YORK, Feb 05, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — MS — There are meaningful differences in motor oils and choosing the right one can have a major impact on how well your car runs. Selecting the right oil is the quickest and cheapest way to improve your car’s performance and reliability.

Base oils

The two primary types of base oils used are mineral and synthetic. Mineral oils are by-products of refined crude oil. Refining helps reduce the impurities but leaves molecules of all shapes and sizes. Synthetic oils are manmade compounds where molecules are all the same size and shape; consequently, synthetic oil has less friction and performs significantly better than mineral oils.

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The Difference Is Genuine

Evinrude XD 50 Bulk OilEvinrude/Johnson XD50

ENHANCED FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE – WITHOUT A DROP OF STEROIDS. Evinrude/Johnson XD50™ is a synthetic blend oil that delivers dependable performance under heavy-use conditions. XD50 meets the specific demands of direct injection outboards and water-cooled 2-cycle outboard engines. XD50 – more reliable, less maintenance.

  • Reduces smoke for cleaner operation
  • Protects against wear with superior lubricity
  • Contains CarbX™ Combustion Cleaner

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