Hell everyone, looking for some assistance with (2) oil issues I have on my 2013 Mercury Optimax Pro XS 225hp. Serial number 1B978352.
First one developed yesterday...
Yesterday I received a critical low oil warning/signal after riding back several miles on Lake Michigan bouncing on some good size rollers. It happened when I entered the harbor and throttled back to no wake speed. Turned the engine off, turned it back on, same warning. I ran the rest of the way in on my kicker and then turned the engine back on to load the boat on the trailer (5-10mins after original issue), there was no low oil signal/warning. Popped the cowl (with engine off) and the on-board oil tank is maybe 1" low from the top (which I want to say is where its always been).
We had a hell of a day catching Coho salmon to the point I forgot to turn the main motor off when we started putting lines in because we instantly started catching fish, so it was idling for a good 40mins before I realized it it, after that I turned it off (was trolling on my kicker the whole time). I'm assuming this would not have caused this but checking with you guys to make sure I didn't miss something. Prop had a lot of soot on it but I've founds this to be normal if I am idling/no wake speed running the engine a lot.
I got home, pulled the remote oil tanks intake and cleaned the bottom of it, it wasn't really gummed up only a little bit of gel on it. I've heard people say that the sensor inside the tank might be going bad... possible that the rough water caused it to act up until it reset itself?
Second issue (finally trying to resolve it).
About a year ago I started having issues with the on-board/engine oil tank leaking from the cap. I finally sealed it with Life Seal and the cap no longer has issues (threads no longer hold, this sounds like a common issue). I want to say when I sealed it, the tank was almost full, shortly there after we did a week of fishing in Canada with a large amount of 3/4-full throttle running around. Mid trip I noticed a massive amount of oil inside the cowl on 'everything' on the front half of the motor. During the trip I had an ignition coil go bad on me (visible crack with material flowing out) so I had the engine up overnight/part of the next day in the full trimmed up position to work on it.
The leak came out of the bottom of the cowl, I wiped it off and while it has been wet inside the cowl since and it does not appear to be 'adding' any more oil to the leak as nothing is dripping out (I didn't clean the inside of the cowl until last night). This leak did not happen from the oil tank cap that I sealed (confirmed this when I noticed all the oil).
After looking through everything I've concluded that the leak occurred somewhere between the 3 way fitting (Merc part #424254) and the bottom of the intake manifold where the main oil link and the smaller black ones are zip tied. There is no oil coming out of any of the small black hoses that go to the reed block holder nor is there any oil coming out of the oil pump assembly on the Starboard side of the engine.
I cleaned everything and will throw muffs on when they arrive tomorrow and see if I have any clear oil leaks. In the event I do not find a leak, is there any type of pressure relief valve in the engine for the on-board tank that would cause it to spill out while I was on the trip? My main question is why does the 3 way fitting (Merc part #424254) have a 3rd barb that look different does not have any hose attached to it.
Thanks in advance for any help you guys may offer. The engine runs absolutely fine other than yesterday's low oil signal and this oil spill.
Mike.
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Originally Posted by Savage
