AQ131 VP275 Oil In bellows

[axisg]

Boat's been fighting me again this year. I still get a little oil in the antifreeze which I can deal with.

New problem though. As I trailer my boat everywhere I noticed a small oil puddle dried to the concrete under the outdrive. Not a big deal as I own 3x GM products so they all tend to leak a little
When I took the boat out on the water last weekend we dropped anchor to do some fishing. After about 10 mins I noticed a small rainbow sheen across the water at the stern in the right light. I thought it was maybe the vent tube sloshing some fuel around and disregarded it. With the boat back in the driveway I notice there is a new oil spot under the boat which is oil leaking from the lower bellows. Not a lot but enough that I put a piece of cardboard under it to catch. Temp has been in the high 90's all week and the stain on the cardboard is getting larger. I know the lower bellows is supposed to be changed every 2-3 years and I have not ( figuring my boat spends maybe 40 hrs a year in the water and maybe 10 of that is run time I have put it off ).

Anyways once the temps come down to something more reasonable what should I be looking for when I remove that lower bellows as the suspect of the leak ?

 

[peejcj8]

Is it reasonable to say if you have oil in antifreeze, you could have oil in the exhaust?

Are you sure its coming from the exhaust bellow and not the drive bellow? Either way leaking gear oil is not good. You should not drive it until resolved. You should try and verify where its coming from, drain the drive and verify the drive is not milky. You can also loosen the drive bellow and see if water is in there, or gear oil. If you have oil leaking out of exhaust bellow, then I have no experience with that one. But if it is, I would check and see that you have no water in the drive. Then I would look at the oil coming from the motor via the exhaust. Does your exhaust smoke?

 

[axisg]

thx for the reply. Turns out it was the upper bellows leaking onto the back of the lower. I have the drive half apart now and making up a hoist to pull the leg off later tonight

 

[axisg]

wanted to update the thread. Once apart it seems as the oil in the leg is being pulled into the bellows past the seals on the upper gearbox via the ujoint input.

The BOC has a complete writeup on their site and it seems to be a fairly common issue for the VP drives. So now In addition to the seals I am changing the U-joints and shaft bearing in the transom just because I am in there. I have also come to find out the marina put gear oil in the outdrive which is apparently much thicker than the 30 wt oil that's supposed to be in there. I continue the near vertical learning curve with this boat but I can honestly say it is so very nice when its working that I often forget all the hours I spend working on this pig !

The oil in the antifreeze in an annoyance though !

 

[bruceb58]

I have also come to find out the marina put gear oil in the outdrive which is apparently much thicker than the 30 wt oil that's supposed to be in there

Although they should not have put anything but engine oil in there, 30 viscosity oil is about the same viscosity as 75W90 gear oil.