'87 Yamaha 150 Oil Alarm at startup-goes off eventually

FarmallM

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
Dec 2, 2010
Messages
43
After sitting for a week or so, the oil alarm will sound when starting up my '87 Yamaha 150. Plenty of oil in aux. tank. After several startup/shutdown cycles, it goes off and causes no problems until it has set for a week or so. Any idea what I can do to keep this from happening? Thanks.
Marlin
 

gdpalumbo

Seaman
Joined
Mar 18, 2009
Messages
50
The oil alarms are on the main engine tank on those motors. You have a secondary tank in your boat that you fill and that pumps oil into the main engine tank. The sensor in the engine tank is magnetic, I believe there are three different spots where it makes connections, one tells the oil to start pumping from the secondary tank, one tells it to stop pumping from the secondary tank and the bottom one is the alarm. As far as I know there are no alarm contacts in the secondary tank. I would pull the switch out of the engine tank and make sure it isn't sticking. The switch is long and attached to the cover of the tank with a bunch of wires going into it. The only way a low oil warning would occur, is if that sensor detects a low oil level. The motor has no way to know if oil is actually being pumped into the mixture but the pumps on these motors are very good. If the switch is good, I would start looking at some electrical issue, Don't worry though, If your main engine tank is full, your motor will not blow up if the alarm is going off as long as your oil pump is good which I assume it has no issue because you've been running the motor. Remember to make sure you key is off when you pull that switch or the secondary tank will just keep pumping oil into the engine tank until it empties itself or until you put the switch back in. Good luck let me know.
 
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