Is it common for water to leak in between flywheel cover and transom seal?

[mybadford]

As the title says, Is it common for water to leak in between the flywheel housing and transom shield? Do these seals fail often? I went out on my boat Saturday afternoon. For whatever reason I always open the engine hatch when I've been sitting in the water for a while to see if water is leaking in. It's a habit. Sometimes the boat gets jarred kinda hard going over waves. The boat has never taken in water. Saturday I noticed a considerable amount of water under the engine. I pumped it out and I got to looking around and seen water coming in between the flywheel housing and transom shield a couple inches to the starboard side of the grease zerk for the support bearing. I drove back to the loading ramp which was about 10 miles and it didn't take on any water and I kinda figured it wouldn't. But once i started sitting there waiting on the trailer to be backed in I saw water seeping in on the port side a little farther down but no longer on the starboard side. I was thinking the ujoint bellow ripped for some reason. Once i got the boat out of the water I started looking at the bellows and didn't see any tears and got to looking closer and seen where the 6 bolts are and where the flywheel cover comes through. I kinda ruled out the bellows. So is it common for the seal to start leaking all of the sudden? Could it possibly be the bolts have backed off a little or even the engine tower starting to crush for being jarred around and the engine is falling forward a little. the engine towers that the front of the engine bolts to "looked" ok But I haven't looked real close at everything.

This is a picture of where it was coming in.
My boat is a 1990 Baretta Phaser 230 with a AQ231 and the outdrive says SP-CD trim

 

[diesel1960]

Re: Is it common for water to leak in between flywheel cover and transom seal?

Volvo is using two rubber rings to seal connection between engine and outdrive.
Those rings will allowed for some misalignment,water should never penetrate there.
You must check connecting ring bolts ,maybe got loose,remove upper unit to have access to the ring and bolts.

 

[Don S]

Re: Is it common for water to leak in between flywheel cover and transom seal?

There is a rubber ring on each side of the transom shield, when they get flat or something starts moving around for some odd reason, they can leak. This picture should help you visualize how they go together.
The 6 bolts go through the clamp ring and thread into the flywheel housing. Those locking tabs should prevent those bolts from turning. Even without the tabs, I have never seen all 6 bolts come loose.

 

[mybadford]

Re: Is it common for water to leak in between flywheel cover and transom seal?

There is a rubber ring on each side of the transom shield, when they get flat or something starts moving around for some odd reason, they can leak. This picture should help you visualize how they go together.
The 6 bolts go through the clamp ring and thread into the flywheel housing. Those locking tabs should prevent those bolts from turning. Even without the tabs, I have never seen all 6 bolts come loose.

View attachment 165189

After looking closer at it I found the port side fiberglass engine mount was in fact broke. that side of the engine dropped about an inch. Guess I'm going to have to pull the engine and figure out how to get crafty in engineering a repair on the engine mount. That might explain why the ujoints suddenly got violently loud when turning.