How would I know if I had water in the drive oil? Drained the oil today (Merc HP) and it looked "cloudy", but I wouldn't describe it as "milky". Not sure of the maintenance history, so this oil may be several seasons old.

If there is water in the oil, would it be obvious?

Thanks in advance,

D. Ocean
Pompano Beach, FLA

Don't leave it drained long if there as water in it.Leaving everything exposed to the air, parts will rust or corrode. Pressure vacuum check it. If it holds, re-fill and take a test ride,recheck after test run.If no hold, disassemble and wash parts right away.

If you have water in the oil and it's the green mercruiser lube.... it will look like a shamrock milkshake... and it doesn't take much to do it... most likely you have a worn out seal at the propshaft... doing a vacuum test really won't tell you much.. because the seal could still hold vacuum and yet let water in under running conditions. I don't know which drive you have... but the SSM's have three seals where the prop shaft exits the drive... two to hold the water out... one to hold the oil in.. good luck.

I pressurize (10-15psi) my drives and spray soapy water around to find leaks. The seal at the driveshaft input does not have a vacuum component to it, so not holding vacuum, from my experience does not tell too much.

Oil seals tend to seal better under pressure.. because of the direction of the lip. the oil seal has the lip facing inward... the seals to keep the water out are facing toward the prop (outward).... if the water gets past the water seals... it will easily push under the oil seal... you can have absolutely no oil leaking from the drive... but have lots of water pushing in from in front of the prop... I've experienced it first hand. Change the oil..... and ten minutes later you have a shamrock milkshake flowing out of the reservoir vent inside the transom.

I filled my drives over the weekend.

Drives were empty over the winter. I bought the boat in Dec.

One of the drives spewed a little bit of water (an ounce?) from the drain/fill when I pulled the plug out.

Isn't otherwise leaking. I'm not set up to pressure check, but I've never seen this. I went ahead and filled it with merc high perf.

I ran it a couple minutes no outward problems. It ran and shifted fine. No overflow of fluid into bilge. When I get home later I will check the fluid for green milkshake, but I haven't launched the boat yet, so I may not find a leak until I do.

How freaked should I be about finding that water?

Is it a 100% chance that I am screwed in that drive?

I'm certainly no expert, but if your drives were stored empty and water came out, I would guess it's built-up condensation.

I believe drives should be stored full to prevent surface corrosion, etc.?

D. Ocean
Pompano Beach, FLA

You can build pressure in the drive enough to check vent plugs, and seals (soapy water method) using the lube pump. Just don't remove the vent screw and put several pumps of lube into the case.

BT

I'm surprised noone mentioned the O-rings on the vent and drain plugs which dry out and harden if you don't change them every year. I've seen where they disintegrate and stick to the drive and not the plug. For the upper plug, I found some with a hex head in Hot Boat that work very nice with the Mayfair steering on my #5's.It's often the simple stuff that causes problems

Thanks for the tips. Didn't mean to jump on your thread Danny! Seemed like the topic was right.

I would believe condensation I guess. I usually leave the drive lube in the case unless I split the drive for service over the layup period. This time the last owner drained the drives.

I'll try that trick with the pump, just to see if anything else funny is going on with seals.

Thanks again.