Scare Today - Advice???

[james 14]

Merc Opti 200hp

 

Went out today. Noticed a bit of oil where the wiring cluster loops over the edge of the back deck. Had run the boat at idle for about 300 yards. Turns out the oil hoses for the motor and reservoir had come apart where they were joined together just outside the motor housing. There's actually two hoses that run from the reservoir and this was the one that runs directly to the engine block and not the one running to the reserve tank.

 

I never got an alarm (thought I was supposed to get one anytime oil was pulled from the reserve tank) and never noticed any ill symptoms from the motor itself. I'm also missing about a gallon of oil but have no idea where it came out and really have no idea when the hose came loose. I cut the end of the hose that had split and was able to slide it back over the fitting with the other hose. From there the motor ran fine all day, however, it was an idle speed only lake.

 

My last trip was 2 or 3 weeks ago where I was running WOT for a good portion of the day with no problems.

 

Is there anything I should check besides adding a couple hose clamps to the ends of those hoses? I have no idea why they weren't there in the first place...or why there is a joint right outside the cowling...or why there's a joint in the hoses at all???

 

On a positive note (I guess) I found where my speedo tube was disconnected.

 

On another negative note somehow my dang transom saver bounced off the trailer and is probably somewhere on the interstate. When it rains it pours it seems. I did catch some fish, however...and the TS didn't destroy anything on it's journey off the trailer and motor.

[BKeith]

Your saving grace was probably the fact you were at idle speed.  A motor needs very little oil at idle and can actually idle for a while on raw gas, but I wouldn't recommend trying it to see just how long it will.

 

Anything you did that might have hurt the motor would probably have showed it's ugly head by now so I seriously doubt you did any harm to it.   After all, those Opti-Pops don't really need a good reason to blow, so if you gave it one and it hasn't by now, I doubt you hurt it. 

 

Also, I'm not much of a Merc guy so can't say exactly how yours works but sometimes they do the oil like some fuel injection systems, where they send way more oil to maintain a certain pressure and the excess is bled off back into the tank.  If your oil tank has two lines going to the motor, that's probably the way yours is and it could have just been the return like leaking.  Meaning the motor was getting plenty of oil and the return line was the one leaking.  Dumping the oil on the motor rather than back in the tank.

 

Regardless, I wouldn't be worried about it being damaged, but would make a good inspection of the whole system.

[james 14]

This actually makes a great deal of sense.

 

Now that I think about it it probably came loose during my previous trip due to the amount of oil lost from the reservoir. I wasn't thinking about how little oil is actually used (less than a gallon per 50gal tank for me). I'm always careful about trimming my motor up all the way but I'm going to be even more careful now.