Re: 1960 15HP Gale Buccaneer Sea King

[David Stanton]

Opps forgot to answer your oil question. I don’t know where you heard not to use marine oils. The correct ratio is 24 to 1 for a 1960 OMC motor and use of today’s TCW3 rated outboard oils (all outboard oil today is TCW3 rated) is great and, back then, the manufacturer said you can also use SAE30 non-detergent oil in place of outboard motor oil. Back in the 1960s SEA30 is all we used in Dad’s 1960 40 HP and 1965 60 HP Johnsons, and we had no trouble running 200 gallons per summer at the cabin. Synthetic outboard oil should also work fine and may smoke a bit less.

FYI: TCW3 stands for Two-Cycle Watercooled, and the 3 is the current revision of the spec it has to meet. Now it’s NOT good to use TCW3 in Chainsaws and other air cooled 2-cycle motors, so maybe you got the story reversed.

Now when you say "Marine Oil" if you mean oil marketed by motor manufacturers for the crankcase of 4-stroke motors, do not use that – it is essentially the same as 10W30 automotive oil.
Dave