Oil in bilge

[wilemobius]

Was checking for water in ski locker and found oil mixed in water. I checked the oil level and realized that my oil level was actually too high. Would overfilling engine oil cause oil to leak from pan?

[maxpower220]

No, overfilling won't cause oil to leak from the pan. It is sealed (or should be). It MAY be possible that the dipstick tube lost a seal and COULD leak from there, but that is unlikely as well.

When you say overfilled, by a little or a lot? Overfilling by a lot can cause damage to the engine if you run it that way.

It would be helpful to know your boat model and year. Look for signs of oil on the block. Typical places are at the rear of the engine where it mounts to the transmission (the rear seal). Around the intake manifold, around the valve covers, around the oil pressure sensor, around the harmonic balancer (the front seal), and around the oil pan gasket.

If you can't find it. I would fill oil to proper level, hose off the engine and bilge with simply green, and get some UV dye from the auto part store and add to the oil. Run the boat for a few hours and check with a black light. You can see a purple trail of leaking oil.

[brain_rinse]

My guess would be vdrive oil leak. Wipe the underside of the vdrive and see if it's oily.

[zabooda]

Could be spillage from the oil filter change.

[Ian Brantford]

My guess would be vdrive oil leak. Wipe the underside of the vdrive and see if it's oily.

Does anyone have a short list of things that might cause a V-drive leak that are not expensive to check and fix? Mine has a slow leak, so right now I am going through one or two oil sponges a season to keep oil from being expelled to the lake. I assume that there is at least one drain plug or bolt to check, somewhere down in what's now muck.