Oil slick everywhere I go...

[SkeeterJohn]

Stupid question but are you sure the oil on the water isn't trim fluid ?

[201pro]

It takes very little fluid to make a huge slick. I had a small jackplate leak that looks just like this and it was almost not noticeable off the trailer.
I fished from a guys boat this spring that had a small steering system leak that was causing a huge slick this year also.

[B Robinson]

I've done jobs on the trim unit and steering units, the oil slick is definitely not coming from either. It's clearly coming from the engine.

[B Robinson]

So...an update: I'm still fighting this issue. I've gone thru some more things including check valves, fuel pumps, etc....it's clearly coming from the engine, out the exhaust. When the head was taken off, I could see it was beat up in that cylinder. The biggest thing in my mind right now is, if that head isn't flat and providing a nice place for the explosion to happen, maybe not all fuel/oil is burning in there and there's some blow by? I've had guys tell me the head isn't the issue, and others have said yes, it can cause hot spots, etc....

What do you think? I'm thinking for $50-60 I can get a nice used head and slap it on there myself and see what kind of difference it makes. Compression is good, but....in my limited knowledge on all this, it kinda makes sense that maybe that head should be nice and smooth in there instead of beat up.

[201pro]

What beat up the head? It didn’t just get that way without something going thru the cylinder.

[SKfishing]

So...an update: I'm still fighting this issue. I've gone thru some more things including check valves, fuel pumps, etc....it's clearly coming from the engine, out the exhaust. When the head was taken off, I could see it was beat up in that cylinder. The biggest thing in my mind right now is, if that head isn't flat and providing a nice place for the explosion to happen, maybe not all fuel/oil is burning in there and there's some blow by? I've had guys tell me the head isn't the issue, and others have said yes, it can cause hot spots, etc....

What do you think? I'm thinking for $50-60 I can get a nice used head and slap it on there myself and see what kind of difference it makes. Compression is good, but....in my limited knowledge on all this, it kinda makes sense that maybe that head should be nice and smooth in there instead of beat up.

I’m not sure what gone thru means here. Did you change the LP fuel pumps? Fuel can leak through them causing an oil sheen on the water and blown powerhead by diluting the oil in the crankcase. They were a yearly maintenance item for me when I was running my HPDI.

[B Robinson]

Thought I would take the time to check in here and let you all know that the problem has been found and fixed. Sure is nice to have it back up and running again the way it should be. Best part was, we found it ourselves, fixed it ourselves, wasn't that bad. Just wish we'd found it a lot sooner. But hey, I know a ton more about the motor now than I ever did before, that's for sure.

To address the couple of recent posts: I did change the low pressure fuel pumps a few years ago, had to do that on both Yammies I've owned. Easy fix, but not the problem here.

Fluid in the water was definitely not trim fluid, although I did end up doing a trim job on the unit recently as well, so now it's running like new.

The inside of the head was pinged up somewhat because of parts of the rings or whatever coming loose when I lost the cylinder. Connecting rod came loose, but before it did, some errant pieces of metal went thru, and we found some shards in various places.

Speaking of which, they helped cause part of this problem it seems. We found a vacuum leak on the intake, so we took the air box cover, intake, reed assembly and gaskets out, found some metal pieces in there causing problems. So we cleaned that all out, smoothed seating parts down a little with emery cloth, and replaced the outer and inner intake gaskets, torqued em down, and made sure that was all good and tight. But, before we did that, you could see a lot more under all that stuff with it removed, and wouldn't you know it, we found an oil line with a chunk out of it. No idea how it happened, but I have a theory. Guy who worked on it last year had it in his shop, probably had the cowling off for days, and maybe a mouse got up in there, took a bite....only thing I can think of, because this coincided with it being repaired last year. Sure looks like such a bite, but who knows. All I do know is a new oil line fixed it well, and it's running pretty nice right now.

So, once again, Thanks again very much for all the help and support. This is a really great place to be able to chat about such issues.0511201510.jpg

[Ranger519VS]

That would have to be a huge rat to take a bite that size