White Milky Oil ????

[George Zeck]

Hello all -

I just started my PM for the end of season before dropping the boat off for storage. I drained the gear oil in the lower half of the outboard (25HP; 2 stroke, Merc, 2000/01).

It came out very, very white. Almost if not identical to milk (but greasy). I can only assume some water got in, but what specifically should I be looking at?

I did not refill it. It probably has < 30 hours since the last change (2 years).

The engine sounds good and operates quite nicely. I hope I didn't hurt anything. Only been run in freshwater lakes.

Tx-

George
Avon Lake, OH

12ft. APEX RIB with 25HP Merc (2 stroke).

 

[hotrod53]

Re: White Milky Oil ????

Water in the oil makes it white and milky, I used to get that on my dirtbike crank cases when the waterpump seal failed. Sounds to me like you need lower unit seals. If you had left that oil in there over the wiinter it would have frozen and cracked the case like mine did before I bought it.

It takes a special tool to remove the shaft nut on the lower unit, kind of like a really long fingered spanner wrench. That kinda makes it tough on us DUIers. I would think that you probably didn't hurt anything and you caught it in time, eventually the bearings would go. Easiest thing to check is to be sure that you have the little gasket on the vent screw, sometimes they fall out, get lost, or you put in a new one and now you have two. It's not the lower fill screw or you would have lost the oil. Could also be the O rings in the lower unit.

 

[George Zeck]

Re: White Milky Oil ????

On the level of 1 (easy) to 10 (take it to the shop) -- how difficult is this project?

 

[hotrod53]

Re: White Milky Oil ????

We'll let someone else chime in on that, I know what the inside looks like because I have a cracked case full of gears in my driveway...LOL. Again, the special tool kinda screws us from taking it apart. There is about a 4" threaded ring that you can see whan you pull the prop, that removed the lower shart and gears.

I know that there is a big O ring about 4" diameter around the outer part of the shaft and another ~2.5" O ring under the water pump, I think another around the shift shaft. I know enough about it to be dangerous, fortunately for me I have a fishing buddy that is a motor rebuilder that I can lean on. He recently helped me to change the water pump and install a new lower unit, I think I can do that myself now.