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Old 05-04-2012, 09:52 PM   #13
O C Diver
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City: Fort Myers, FL... Summers in the Great Lakes
Vessel Name: Slow Hand
Vessel Model: Cherubini Independence 45
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 12,834
Quote:
Originally Posted by manyboats View Post
Chrisjs,
You better hope it does burn some oil. There is a ring on the piston that's called an oil control ring and it controls how much oil is left on the cylinder walls when the piston comes down. With an engine in good condition the oil control rings provide enough oil on the cylinder walls to lubricate the cyl walls, the piston and the upper compression rings. Burn no oil = lots of wear.
Guess it depends on the definition of "some oil". My dodge pickup has the same Cummins 6BT-5.9 engine that my boat use to have. The oil barely moves on the stick between oil changes (every 5,000 miles). With 305,000 miles (6,000 +/- hours) there doesn't seem to be any wear on the engine for not using any appreciable amount of oil.

Now my charter boat engine, Cummins 6CT-8.3 (300 hp) gets an oil change every 50 hours. But then it's burning 10 to 14 gallons per hour as compared to my pick up which burns 2.5 to 3.5 gallons per hour.

Ted
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