Good day all. We have a 2007 Vision with a Volvo D40 deisel. Went out for a sail and had a good two hours healed heavily to the Portside in 16-20 knot wins. Ran the engine about one hour coming back into marina with no issues. When I opened the engine compartment to turn off the fresh water intake, I noticed a small pool of buttery covered fluid on the left side of the engine floor. Our coolant is red/pink so I am not sure what I am seeing. Could you be something from the sail drive? It seems to have come from that direction and collected on the port side of the boat. Thanks!
Hi...!!
Can you clarify, does your saildrive use oil or TQF as the lubricant, and what colour is the fluid in the leak...?? ...Bill.
Hey Bill - We use Rotella 15w40 oil for the saildrive. The fluid we saw definitely has an oily base. Color is yellowish. Does that help?
I have noticed sometimes in our engine compartment that mix of oil and water and heat , creates a yellow thick paste if that helps
Did you check engine oil, coolant and saildrive oil levels?
Quote from: captpatrick211 on November 03 2023, 15:31
Hey Bill - We use Rotella 15w40 oil for the saildrive. The fluid we saw definitely has an oily base. Color is yellowish. Does that help?
Hi... Your description of the fluid having a "buttery" coating sounds like water with an emulsion of oil/water floating on top..
I would think an oil/water emulsion couldn't just occur spontaneously but requires to be 'whipped-up' somehow, either within the engine or saildrive, as you might see inside a radiator cap or oil filler cap on a car with a blown head where some mixing of the oil and coolant has occurred...
Have a look inside the coolant/engine oil/saildrive filler caps and run your finger around under the rim to see if there's any 'mayonnaise' lurking..
If not, I don't think the buttery material came from the engine or saildrive..........Good luck.....Bill.
Sounds like a bit of coolant has been spat out, and mixed with a bit of oily sludge in the engine sump.
Clean it out and give the engine bilge a thorough clean, and then see if it happens again.
Thanks everyone - turned out to be oil from the saildrive that somehow mixed with a little water (likely some condensation that was resident at the base of the engine. Two leaky seals that we replaced. Will give it a run to test further but seems to have solved the problem.