Spring

[axelkloehn]

Spring arrived in North Germany, beautiful easter weekend with endless sun and warm temperatures. I pulled the cover from my GT, checked everything after the long winter, installed my seats and carpet, changed the steering wheel to a more classic looking one, checked electrics- everything fine.
I trimmed the drive up and down once or twice, than I saw some water dripping out of the bravos water intake. What made me wonder is the water was smeary and obviously mixed with some oil, too bright for drive oil, looked more like ATF? Should I be worried or is this normal? How can this be? I winterized engine and drive with lots of antifreeze?

[craigdskilling]

How did you winterize the drive suck up anti threw the drive. and did you store the drive up or down for the winter.

[MOP]

Need to do a little investigating should not be any oily stuff coming out there. A pressure and vacuum check on the drive would be a good idea.

[axelkloehn]

How did you winterize the drive suck up anti threw the drive. and did you store the drive up or down for the winter.

I rinsed it with antifreeze under pressure from the hose inside the engine room, drive was up during winter

[osur866]

Better to put drive down before pulling battery to let water drain out of the nose and passages of the lower.
Steve

[MDonziM]

I rinsed it with antifreeze under pressure from the hose inside the engine room, drive was up during winter

Hopefully you didn't crack anything but as Steve said, the drive should be down for Winter storage. Did you check the bellows? If they have a leak or if water was inside and ran out along the drive it might look like it came out of the water inlet and could have been mixed with ujoint grease.

- Marshall

[silverghost]

Axel:
Could the red "ATF" colored slippery fluid be antifeeze mixed with engine water-jacket, or manifold rust ?

Antifreeze is very slippery & oily feeling once most of the water mixed in with it evaporates over the winter.

Did you use regular green antifreeze , or orange long- term , or seasonal RV type antifreeze ?

Let's hope all is well with your outdrive.

[Phil S]

Need to do a little investigating should not be any oily stuff coming out there. A pressure and vacuum check on the drive would be a good idea.

Sage advice.

Hoping it is something simple !

WKR,
Phil S.

[Phil S]

Better to put drive down before pulling battery to let water drain out of the nose and passages of the lower.
Steve

[axelkloehn]

Thanks for all your good hopes and advices, checked it yesterday again. The portside trimcylinder has a little leak at the hose fitting close to the transom, the drive does not stay in up position anymore, it slowly goes down (1 inch a day). Any idea how to fix this without killing the thread?

But that was not the reason for the greasy water. It looks like Brad is right, I rinsed the drive with red-ish antifreeze before winter, looks very similar to the ATF, I smelled the greasy water and found the old bottle of Antifreeze- same smell, so hopefully nothing happened to the drive.
Test-drive is coming soon, may be this weekend- but for the next week they are forecasting strong night frost again...

[Fishermanjm]

axel,,, taste it antifreeze is sweet tasting,,, not that i drink it,,,

[axelkloehn]

Correction: both trimcylinders leak... one at its hose fitting, the other at the push rod.

WHY DOES EVERY BOATING SEASON START WITH A "OOOHH""??

[Phil S]

Just part of owning a boat brutha......glad you found the problem though and it does sound simple enough to fix !

With kind regards,

Phil S.

[craigdskilling]

What does boat stand for.?Bring Out Another Thousand