Drive Oil Resevoir

[Thomv]

Just picked up a used Advantage 29 footer with the 525 Mercury Racing engine. Took it out for a spin today. When I got back from a run of about 1/2 hour I opened up the engine hatch and found the drive oil reservoir almost completely empty with drive oil all over the engine and the whole back of the transom. I feel if I had run the engine for another 15 minutes my low oil drive reservoir warning alarm would have gone off. Before taking the boat out I actually topped off the drive oil up to the top level line on the reservoir so what could have caused all the drive oil to be all over the engine compartment? I believe the oil reservoir is a gravity fed system. Please correct me if this is not the case. It almost looks like the tube feeding the outdrive started to reverse flow the drive oil right out of the top of the drive oil reservoir. If this is true what would cause that? I did check and the cap on the top of the reservoir was tight.

 

[Fun Times]

If the seal to the underside of cap is missing/damaged or the orange rubber check valve on top of the cap is compromised (damaged) in any way shape or form then that would allow drive oil to spill out of the top of the reservoir.....The easiest test to try first would be to buy and install a new cap and test run the boat again to see if it continues to spill out while watching the reservoir.....Maybe install some sort of an temporary camera system to help watch the oil reservoir better.

Item number 28, http://www.mercruiserparts.com/bam/subassembly/30967/1943/330 [h=6]Product Images[/h]

 

[Bondo]

Ayuh,.... Did ya check the oil, In the drive,..??

If there's water contamination, the expansion rate will be considerably higher,....

 

[Thomv]

If the seal to the underside of cap is missing/damaged or the orange rubber check valve on top of the cap is compromised (damaged) in any way shape or form then that would allow drive oil to spill out of the top of the reservoir.....The easiest test to try first would be to buy and install a new cap and test run the boat again to see if it continues to spill out while watching the reservoir.....Maybe install some sort of an temporary camera system to help watch the oil reservoir better.

Item number 28, http://www.mercruiserparts.com/bam/subassembly/30967/1943/330 [h=6]Product Images[/h]
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I was thinking on the same lines going with a remote camera.

 

[Thomv]

Ayuh,.... Did ya check the oil, In the drive,..??

If there's water contamination, the expansion rate will be considerably higher,....

No water contamination that I could see.