stoopid_me
Member
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2006
- RO Number
- 21967
- Messages
- 1
My first boat, my first post, i'm pretty sure this ain't good. I got a 26' Regal with a Merc 7.4 MPI and the Bravo III. It's a 1998 and has about 300 hours on it (only 40 of which are me). Right after i got the thing i took it offshore - Catalina - for a week and it ran like a dream. When i got back i did the following:
Changed oil & filter
Rewired Batteries (shop has put them back in wrong banks)
Changed lower unit fluid
Changed Fuel/Water separator filter
Topped off other fluids
I tell you all this so you know what i might have screwed up to cause this up-coming problem...
Runs great in driveway friday morning but ...
Ok -- so the other day i take the boat to the local freshwater lake. I drop it in so i can take my trailer to the local welder for work. I come back from dropping the trailer and fire up the boat. Strange ... the seawater pump doesn't want to turn. My belt is spinning but it isn't! I stop cranking and wait 30 seconds, same thing. The third time its ok so i motor off nervously.
1/2 mile into the lake i smell bad things, then i hear the alarm for a second or two. I had been at 2000 rpm or so. I knew something was bad (am pilot, have sixth sense of when i'm screwed...) so i shut the engine down. Yes, shut it straight down (hadn't been on the forum to know better...) I open up the hatch and it doesn't smell good. i pitch out the anchor and hope there is more beer in the cooler than i think there is.
I try to crank it a half hour later, won't even turn. now i know something is very bad. i get the wife and kid off the boat and get them headed in for parts. Nice guy at the shop tells me that i have waterlocked my engine and that i need a new water pump etc.
while the wife goes to get new waterpump and plugs i pull the plugs out and gentle crank it to get the water out. it comes out ... and out. then i hit it with WD-40 a couple times. Got a tow and and back on the trailer.
Back in the driveway i replace the water pump and let the plug holes dry overnight, more wd-40. Next morning i put the new plugs in and it fires right up. i'm a very very very happy man. So i take it back to the lake. it runs great. very happy. i did notice two things that i was pretending not to notice though -- one was that in a right hand turn i "felt clunking" a very little. if it was a car i would have pulled the right side tires and checked the bearings. The other thing was a very slight clunk (only noticeable with engince hatch open) -- as if from a cylinder? again, so small that i thought it was my worried imagination.
on to the punchline. after such a successful lake test i didn't even pull the plug, long day. today i go out to happily top of the batteries with water and low and behold 3" of oily water in my bilge. i'm crying now, picture it. i don't know if it's lower unit lube or motor oil. I had checked the motor oil for water and it really looked good so i didn't worry about it. i tried to see where the oil was coming from but couldn't tell.
could someone please tell me how bad it is or might be? i was going to do a long off-shore dive trip in a couple of days but even if i get this fixed i don't know if i'll have the confidence in the boat to do that. Been trying to save money by doing all the work on this thing myself but we just entered a category of work i don't know if i should do .... (?)
Changed oil & filter
Rewired Batteries (shop has put them back in wrong banks)
Changed lower unit fluid
Changed Fuel/Water separator filter
Topped off other fluids
I tell you all this so you know what i might have screwed up to cause this up-coming problem...
Runs great in driveway friday morning but ...
Ok -- so the other day i take the boat to the local freshwater lake. I drop it in so i can take my trailer to the local welder for work. I come back from dropping the trailer and fire up the boat. Strange ... the seawater pump doesn't want to turn. My belt is spinning but it isn't! I stop cranking and wait 30 seconds, same thing. The third time its ok so i motor off nervously.
1/2 mile into the lake i smell bad things, then i hear the alarm for a second or two. I had been at 2000 rpm or so. I knew something was bad (am pilot, have sixth sense of when i'm screwed...) so i shut the engine down. Yes, shut it straight down (hadn't been on the forum to know better...) I open up the hatch and it doesn't smell good. i pitch out the anchor and hope there is more beer in the cooler than i think there is.
I try to crank it a half hour later, won't even turn. now i know something is very bad. i get the wife and kid off the boat and get them headed in for parts. Nice guy at the shop tells me that i have waterlocked my engine and that i need a new water pump etc.
while the wife goes to get new waterpump and plugs i pull the plugs out and gentle crank it to get the water out. it comes out ... and out. then i hit it with WD-40 a couple times. Got a tow and and back on the trailer.
Back in the driveway i replace the water pump and let the plug holes dry overnight, more wd-40. Next morning i put the new plugs in and it fires right up. i'm a very very very happy man. So i take it back to the lake. it runs great. very happy. i did notice two things that i was pretending not to notice though -- one was that in a right hand turn i "felt clunking" a very little. if it was a car i would have pulled the right side tires and checked the bearings. The other thing was a very slight clunk (only noticeable with engince hatch open) -- as if from a cylinder? again, so small that i thought it was my worried imagination.
on to the punchline. after such a successful lake test i didn't even pull the plug, long day. today i go out to happily top of the batteries with water and low and behold 3" of oily water in my bilge. i'm crying now, picture it. i don't know if it's lower unit lube or motor oil. I had checked the motor oil for water and it really looked good so i didn't worry about it. i tried to see where the oil was coming from but couldn't tell.
could someone please tell me how bad it is or might be? i was going to do a long off-shore dive trip in a couple of days but even if i get this fixed i don't know if i'll have the confidence in the boat to do that. Been trying to save money by doing all the work on this thing myself but we just entered a category of work i don't know if i should do .... (?)