Logo

Oil for AQ131275

jbeam150

New member
"I looking for oil for SternDr

"I looking for oil for SternDrive. The Seloc Manual says "Volvo recommends using only Volvo Penta Duraplus GL-5 Gear Case Lubricant." The Volvo operator manual says to use the same lube as the engine, which is 10W/30. Can someone please verify this or make a recommendation of oil? Thanks for the help!"
 
Use motor oil or you'll be

Use motor oil or you'll be sorry. Very hard shifts if you use gear oil. Read my "Pea Green Soup" post. I'm using 10-40 from now on!!! I also have a 275 but with a 225E.
 
"Note that Volvo drives should

"Note that Volvo drives should shift 'hard', but to a cetain extend! If the Volvo drives start with 'silent shift' due to different kind of oils there is a risk of polishing the clutch cone and gear cones which again may lead to an expencive repair. If the shifting gets too hard it is an indication of wear and too much axial play in the vertical primary shaft. I somewhat understand Your 'feelings' Chris, but You are somewhat curing hangover with asperin = the symptomes gets better but should You drive?"
 
"I feel I should go with the 1

"I feel I should go with the 10w/30 because I downloaded the operator manual from www.volvopenta.com. Still not sure though. The shifting seems perfect not to soft but not to hard. I am not trying to correct anything just do some preventative stuff."
 
"Morton, I understand what you

"Morton, I understand what you are saying. However, since I have not yet run the boat with the correct fluid in it yet, I'm not sure as to how it will feel. Do you have any idea as to how many hours or seasons it takes to polish those parts? I have run the boat maybe 15 but less than 20 times in 5 years. The boat really hasn't been on water more than 4 times the last 3 years. My plan was to run this weekend with the 10-40, come back drain it and do the service you spoke of in my other post if I have any concerns after this weekend. If you think this is a foolish plan please let me know."
 
"Justin:
The choise is all Yo


"Justin:
The choise is all Yours. My comment was mainly for Chris and his 'warning' post. I in fact I worked for Volvo Penta, Sweden back in late 70's early 80 at their sea trial station (R&D), resposible for prototype installatons and testing. I ran the duo props years before they were even known to be comming, and we did quite a lot of oil testing, not to forget drive dismantling! In Your combination Aq125, lubrication wise You may run whatever You want except water! Even cooking oil may do! The upper units we 'loaded' with GM350's giving 450Hp at 5500RPM without big problems when using the right oil.
There are two problems that may occur in the upper unit.
One is the conuses gets polished. The first inication is 'smooth' shifting normally followed by hard to get out of gear. If You need to get it out of gear by pushing the gear cable, it may easily lead to cable failure!
The second problem is the play of the primary shaft. It starts with encreasing shifting 'bang' forward or reverse depending of propeller rotation. It is caused by wear of a brass ring under the lower gear holding the shaft. As it gets thinner, the play encreases and the slide hammer effect may be so hard that the ring breakes and the shaft pops straight through the top cover! Unfortunatly too many people (mechs?) correct the encreased play by changing the upper shim nut to a thicker one to get the right play. It works 'ok', shift bang gets reduced until the shaft comes up! However theese cases mainly happends on the big V8 and diesels, so just relax!!! Hoewever I thought it perhaps might be nice to know!
Enjoy Your boating, but please do not take my cooking oil comment to literaly!"
 
"Morten:
Not to beat up the s


"Morten:
Not to beat up the subject, but if the boat was yours which would you do? The reason that I lean toward the 10w/30 is because of it being said by Volvo in the operator manual. Sorry I am just a little confused with the Seloc manual. I figured that Seloc would have check with Volvo to see. Or maybe they did and Volvo said to use the GL-5 and Volvo hasn't updated the manual on the website yet. Thanks for all your help."
 
"Now I'm confused. I thoug

"Now I'm confused. I thought it was the 80/90 stuff I had in there that was a bad thing???
uhoh.gif
"
 
"My intention was not to creat

"My intention was not to create confusion, just to try to explain some of the tecnical problems that might occur, and perhaps prevent som future expensive break downs. We are in general in this forum discussing 20+ years old engines. The drive has a 1000hr overhaul/main check interval, 2500hr lifetime. 20 years of 50hr/year puts them rather close to the first 'main' inspection time, and the name Volvo put on the disputable brass ring at the shaft is translated :wear ring!
Back in Norway I took off all drives during winter storage and checking the shaft play was one of the standard routines in my service. I ran all drives either on Volvo Pentas own synthetic GL 5 oil or OMC Ultra HPF. Oil changed every year. However the boats went normally in water mid May and stayed in until October/November. With water temp from below 10C to if lucky 20C a stable viscosity is a must.
As for the manuals, I do not think the manuals have been rewritten since the 70's when it comes to oil quality until the duoprop drive was released and Volvo came with their own oil. Most of the EP90 oil sold today meets the GL5 standard, at least it should be stated at the package!
My 'recomendation' - use what You have been using until You do a real 1000hrs check of the drive. This includes amongst other things changing of seals etc. Some of the old seals may not be to happy with some of the additives in newer oils, engine oil or GL5. Some fresh seals and check is not too much to demand after 20 years of service in a not too friendly environment!"
 
"Volvo's recommendation, a

"Volvo's recommendation, as stated in the owner's manuals available for download from their website, is to use the same grade of oil for the engine and the outdrive (SAE10/30 or SAE10/40) for all AQs except the ones with DP sterndrives, for which they recommend GL5 (SAE90 or 80W90).Can other oils be used? Most likely they can, however I find it difficult to be wrong by following the manufacturer's recommendations.

Personally, I doubt that any other manufacturer except for Volvo would recommend the use of engine oil for gear application, which to me speaks millions about the quality of the Volvo gears installed in the older sterndrives. Some of those babies have been running on engine oil for 30-40 years and they are still running strong. Haven't heard of any Mercruisers with the same track record, even using GL5.
biggrin.gif
"
 
El Pescador:
Note that the up


El Pescador:
Note that the upper unit is the same duoprop or not! The need for GL5 in duo props is for the lower unit due to double wear (load on both sides of the pinion).
 
"Morten, I find very interesti

"Morten, I find very interesting your comment about you working in the R&D section of Volvo Penta "running the duo props years before they were even known to be comming", so you may be able to answer one question for me. I always wondered why took so long for anyone (Volvo in this case) to develop sterndrives with counterrotating propellers, as that technology was already used at the beginning of the 20th century (and probably known even much earlier) in torpedoes (here is a link whre you can see a torpedo with duoprops in 1914: http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WTUS_PreWWII.htm ). Do you know if Volvo's move towards duoprops was related to the high oil prices at the time, or perhaps it was just another way of competing with other manufacturers for "bigger, better, faster", etc? Just curious."
 
"Duo props as propulsion syste

"Duo props as propulsion system was originally 'developed' for use on torpedoes where they are a 'must'. With a SP system the risk of the torpedo rotating instead of the propeller was a rather anoying problem. The 'secret' about the successful Duo Prop as introduced by Volvo Penta, and the main problem during the development was the propellers itself. You may have noticed that when Duo Prop was introduced all engines had Power steering as standad equipement and it was severe warnings about trying to mix propellers (It still is!). It took almost two years endless breakdowns both on drives and test drivers (broken arms and colarbones!)to find the acceptable ballance and design. Try to disconnect the power steering, take off the forward propeller and give full throtle on a 200HP turbodiesel! NO - DO NOT TRY!!!!!! But to make it short; The possibility of making such a system to work in practice in such applications was made possible due to modern computors. Remember we are talking late 70's when most people hardly had heard about them and Bill Gates had almost just left his dipers!"
 
"Thank you for the explanation

"Thank you for the explanation, Morten. I must admit that, although as a rule I like technological advances, I can be very conservative when it comes to reliability and simplicity. Personally, I am still using a 280 leg with single prop and intend to keep that arrangement for as many years as I can."
 
Back
Top