question about removing water from the oil and smokey exhaust (yes I read the sticky)

[bluefreedom]

Hello everyone,
I have a 1977 Catalina 30 I live on, bought it for a song as everything was in a state of disrepair including her atomic 4. I just replaced the plugs, cap, rotor, condenser, points, coil, plug wires and she still wouldn't start so I sprayed some carb cleaner in the carb and it fired right up. Troubleshooted the gas line and found the weak electric fuel pump wasn't strong enough to prime itself through the water removal filter so i siphoned it by mouth and plugged it back in and it works like a charm now. When I was buying it the owner turned it over for like an hour with the seacock open and FLOODED the engine big time. As soon as I got the boat I found out about this and changed the oil 3 times so it wouldn't mess it up. I just ran a case of oil through the motor 3 quarts at a time, running the engine for 15 minutes between sucking it all out and adding 3 more quarts. I did this 4 times and the last time I added a half quart of marvel mystery oil. Every time I changed the oil the white smoke coming out the back got lighter and lighter but it is still there. I was removing the oil through the plate on the drive unit, it is rectangle and has 4 bolts. it seemed like it was the lowest point but I feel like this is a 4 quart system and I was only pulling 3 quarts at a time so there might have been a quart I didn't change each time. I have 100-120 lbs compression in each cylinder so I know all that is working, temp when at idle is 150 under drive it is 155-160. The oil pressure gauge isn't working but it doesn't overheat so I assume its doing ok. How can I get the darn thing to stop smoking? Its just a small amount of smoke but all the time and the water discharge is a tiny bit oily but not too bad. Can I run the engine in this condition? One guy on the dock told me to run it for a while and it will go away as the water will boil out of the oil but I am hesitant to do that. It holds good temperature under load never going over 160. please share some wisdom as I want to go out this coming 3 day weekend!

captain-rick
"blue freedom"
1977 catalina 30
ventura ca.

ps. I bought and will continue to buy all my atomic 4 parts from Moyer Marine!

[Don Moyer]

Captain-Rick,

Sorry I didn't get to respond before the weekend. In the face of otherwise good performance, my advice would have been to continue using the engine in the hope that the smoke you're reporting is nothing more than from the residual oil and water in your combustion chambers and will continue to diminish over the next several hours.

Don

[bluefreedom]

don,
thanks for the response, i only have about 3 hours on it since the last oil change and iyt is still very smokey, especially when rpm is increased and under load. the oil only has a slight grey tinge to it, it looks 90-95 percent oil. i will continue to run it for a few more hours and see what result i get.

captain rick

[billndm]

[QUOTE=bluefreedom;5674]Hello everyone,
and she still wouldn't start so I sprayed some carb cleaner in the carb and it fired right up. /QUOTE]

I don't think that it is a good practice to spray carb cleaner directly into the carb. It contains some very powerful solvents that could wash away the oil from the cylinder and migrate past the rings into the crankcase. Carb cleaner can damage gaskets and seals within carbs as well. Starting fluid that has lubricant in it would be a better choice if used sparingly.