More than just an oil drip on the Camano.

This has me perplexed. Put about 3 hours on our Camano yesterday, heading out to Longbranch WA from our home port at Day Island. Our engine is a Volvo TAMD 41, like most of the trolls out there.

Got to Longbranch and went to check something and saw the bilge full of oil...like 3 qrts or more. Started looking for any obvious leaks...nothing. Filter fine, oil cooler fine, head and valve covers fine, front seal, fine. rear seal...hard to see, but no obvious signs that oil has been slinging around.

Thinking I might have a hole of some sort in the pan, I filled up the oil and let it sit over night...no oil loss.

Started home this am and kept an eye on the oil. Went through another 3-4 qts getting back to the boathouse.

This thing is dumping enough oil so it shouldn't be hard to spot, but so far, I'm not seeing it.

Plan is to get the bilge cleaned out and place oil absorbent mats under the engine front to back, start it and try and at least get an idea what part of the engine might be the culprit.

I could be missing something, and certainly welcome any suggestions. Pressure was fine at all times.


toni

Different engine, but I had an engine go thru a quart every hour, and this was right after a major overhaul. Mine turned out to the the FRONT seal, and there was no slinging. It wasn't the rotating part of the seal, but a little river of a leak in the static part of the seal. No leak at rest. This should be clear if you get down there with a mirror and light at speed.

Oh right, hang over a running engine? Bad advice. Sorry. Use pads or baby powder, foot powder in a spray can works great. What does the oil in your engine look like?

Ctjstr,

What year are those 41’s? Raw water pump ever leak sea water? I had same symptom last year losing oil fast, ended up being a hole in oil pan above fill line. Only leaked when engine was running. Few years ago I found raw water pump leaking very very slowly, salt water was running down the side of the tin oil pan rusting a hole 1/2” from top of oil pan.

Hope yours ends up being something simple like a hose or top end gasket.

ctjstr:

Same engine, mine lost all of its oil, so the alarm came on when the oil pressure dropped. I found the oil in the drip tray under the engine. No trace of any leak obvious.
Filled up and ran it. found that the oil was dropping into the drip tray without touching any parts of the engine. There was a stream, not under any pressure, but still healthier than a stream of...well you know.
Contortions, mirror and flashlight investigation later, it was coming out of the oil cooler. That occurred at the beginning of a few weeks away, so the rest of that trip, that engine was used only for docking and my cruising speed dropped to 6.5 knots.
When I took the oil cooler off, there was a hole about 1/4" diameter in the aluminum housing of the cooler. After pricing a new cooler, I had a welder that I have used many times before a trusted to do a great job weld it up. New gaskets and back it went. When I had a rebuild done later, the mechanic inspected the oil cooler, as he had quoted on the replacement part so knew the history. He pronounced the repair undetectable.
Hope yours is easier to detect and repair.

thanks Keith. I don't "think" its the cooler, but will double check. as in your case, it has to be a big, relatively obvious leak, given the amount of oil leaving the engine. I had planned to pull the cooler this winter since there is some corrosion on it, so now may be the time.

thanks again

toni