OIL ON LOWER UNIT

J

james

New member
Big Hi to all!

I have a NEW problem, I have just changed the water pump impeller on my yamaha 80 , thought it went fairly smoothly. This past weekend put her in the water,starting peeing again! YEHHH

THEN I get home, washing her down, I look at motor and I see oil, I think running down the top front of the lower unit.
I looked for any damage, I see none.

ANY idea what I might have done(changing the impeller) to make this happen.

I have checked the manual and cannot see a problem with the way I did the impeller change.


thanks for any help,

James
 
James,

Try to find out what kind of oil it is and where it's coming from.

Gear oil has a smell. If you did not remove the driveshaft, then the top seal of the gearcase should be OK.

Could it be motor oil? Loose fill cap or oil filter? Did you do any other work when changing the impeller?

Does it leak in the vertical position or when tilted?

Try wiping off the oil and see if it returns.

I have no direct experience with Yamahas, perhaps someone else here does.
 
Perhaps you should check the gear oil and make sure it isn't showing cloudy/milky white -- would indicate that the lower driveshaft seals are displaced. Otherwise it could be either grease that you liberally applied to some of the components when assemblying, that warmed up and leaked through some of the match lines of the lower and upper units, or, in a remote case, engine oil pump seals have displaced -- that was a recall a few years ago that I brought my 100 hp in to have looked at. Check your engine oil level also, and watch it closely. Could also be exhaust that has condensed some of the combustion products inside of the case and leaking when you pull it out of the water. My 2cents. Good luck. Ron
 
You say it looks like it's coming out of "the top front of the lower unit", could that be from your vent screw to fill/check your lower unit oil? I've had leakage from there when I didn't change the seals under those two screws. The oil expands when it gets hot under the sun and forces out anywhere it can.
 
I looked again last night, it seems to be coming out a little hole above the lower unit, facing the transom.
I should of taken a picture, may do that tonight.


James
 
Hi all! sorry for not posting the conclusion to this. (it may help someone in the future)

Apparently what happened was a combination of a oil pump that was beginning to corrode and a overly strong and misguided attempt at trying to align the drive shaft during reassembly.

my mechanic had NEVER seen the problem before! (lucky me).

The good news is that I was NOT offshore when it started to leak.

thanks again for the post trying to help me rectify the problem.

when all else fails, take it to the expert. It's ONLY money...right?


James
 
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