Freakin Oil in bilge and cant tell if its...

[chrisf695]

Im having real hard time with this... I spent hours last night trying to figure out where this is coming from. The motor is a new built 408 sbc and its clean as a whistle. Looked all over the damn motor, all hoses for the power steering, trim and they are clean. I hate looking at my bilge like this... IM A CLEAN FREAK! Anybody know what the next step is??

 

[Don S]

Re: Freakin Oil in bilge and cant tell if its...

Get the water out of the boat, put some of those white absorbent pads under the engine, go for a ride, and see where the oil drips from. Front, back, side. Check the drain plug on the pan.

 

[smassey22180]

Re: Freakin Oil in bilge and cant tell if its...

Any chance it is left over and draining from hidden parts of the hull? I had a drain from the front hatch to the back that was oily. Bilge would flow forward while at idle and then flow back on plane or trailer. I had to dump some degreaser in the hatch drain to finally get it all cleaned out. Pressure washer also helped.

Boat had a bad u-joint bellows and timing cover oil leak last season. Lots of water got in and pushed oil everywhere

 

[swampy2646]

Re: Freakin Oil in bilge and cant tell if its...

wow!! i wish my bilge looked like that!! do you spray down your power plant with lots of wd-40 like most clean freaks do? it could be running down the block into the bilge.

 

[Pepper2482]

Re: Freakin Oil in bilge and cant tell if its...

Just rebuilt my engine as well and was having same problem. I had 2 locations where it was coming from. First one was dip stick tube. Guessing I didn?t seat it back properly and the second leak was valve cover. I tighten it down to speck but I guess it was not enough. No more oil leaks for me now its time to clean the bilge. Another possibilities is head gasket not put on correctly or torque correctly. Intake gasket?

 

[bonzoscott]

Re: Freakin Oil in bilge and cant tell if its...

Motors breath oil. Doesn't look like much to me. If you took a white cotton glove to a new boat with 20 hours on it, your glove will be gray. Is that bilge pump fore motor?

 

[chrisf695]

Re: Freakin Oil in bilge and cant tell if its...

I was going to take the boat out of the lake tonight and clean it up the bilge(Yes, I always keep it that clean..)and to do some other maintenance, but 2 props came today that I just had to try. We ran it pretty hard today and STILL couldn't find a oil leak, looked everywhere possible... and nothing. Im going to do what Don said this weekend with putting down some absorbent pads and find it that way. I'm not really letting this get me down, motor is still running strong as can be and topped out at 66 mph today at 5k with a full tank and 2 people. A Buddy of mine is coming out this weekend who is a mechanic by trade to take a look also... we might up the timing from 32 to 34-36 to see how it runs. Ill keep you all posted on my progress on hunting this leak down. Thanks for the replies!

 

[SWD]

Re: Freakin Oil in bilge and cant tell if its...

I have 400hrs on my 305 and it doesnt drip that much oil into the bilge. I know my leak is the front seal......will fix that this winter. Once I had the engine warmed up and going it has stopped dripping.

 

[chrisf695]

Re: Freakin Oil in bilge and cant tell if its...

Just thought I would give you all an update...Got the boat out of the water and cleaned up the bilge and laid down some of those oil pads. Looks like its the oil drain/ dip stick... Ill take care of it at the end of the season... not sure if the motor will have to come out for this... But Im glad its nothing major!! Also added a 1 inch carb spacer...