Hello all,
I have a 2005 250 verado on a Triton tr21x. I got an alarm a couple weeks ago, smart craft said "low oil pressure". So I trailered and checked the oil level, assuming that could be a cause of the problem. To my surprise, the oil level wasn't even registering on the dipstick. I checked it back during the late summer and the oil level was slightly lower, but still at the bottom of the operating range so I topped it off and hadn't thought anymore about it since. (I made sure to let the motor cool down for an hour before checking it and trimmed it up to let the oil drain, then back down to settle before reading, to get an accurate level.) Went and bought a couple quarts of 25w-50 Verado oil...it ended up taking almost 3 whole quarts to get it back up to operating range! I had put maybe 15hrs on it since I last checked it so I knew something must be up to have lost this much oil. Especially since I haven't really heard of Verado's burning that much oil from my research. Scared me because I feared that damage was already done due to being that low on oil.
Upon further inspection I found that oil was leaking out of the supercharger air vent, and running down onto the gasket below it. Still, it didn't appear that 3 quarts had leaked out under the cowling, so possibly a combination of burning/leaking? I cleaned the oil off the supercharger exterior with degreaser and removed the air intake. No oil in there from what I could tell. Ran the boat again this weekend, got back to the house and checked the oil level, and it was already out of the operating region again. Sure enough, there was oil leaking out of the air vent and onto the outside of the supercharger again as well.
I found a service bulletin online for supercharger troubleshooting, and it looks like at this point from what I can tell, the only option to stop the leak would be to replace the entire supercharger, if it doesn't fix the leak itself as it should if it is operating properly. The motor has about 625 hrs. I have noticed no performance issues and have received no other alarms. The motor seems to be operating as it should otherwise. I have owned the boat for about 2 years now and have put about 100 hours on it myself with not a single issue. Previous owner took good care of it, as I have tried to as well, but he said he had already replaced the supercharger once. I just wanted to see if this is indeed a dire (and expensive) situation, or if I am just going to have to live with topping off the oil every time I use it, like an old truck, until I get a new boat sometime down the road. I have attached the link to the service bulletin below.
Just curious if anyone who has more experience with these motors and this situation than I do has any insight. Thanks in advance!
http://www.marinepartsexpress.com/Me...%202009-16.pdf