Walter V-Drive almost dry
 

2000 Tige 21V. Did engine oil and tranny fluid change today. Never did the v-drive before but got hooked up by AGraham(thanks again!) with copy of manual so I figured I better take a look. Good thing as the dipstick was almost dry, and when I siphoned the case, I removed only about 1.5 oz of fluid. No sign of leakage in bilge, and if I'm not mistaken, I think I cracked the paint when I removed the dipstick (which means no one had pulled it before?). I remember an earlier post where someone mentioned that these drives are heavy duty and could run on snot, and they must be right. No questions, just a suggestion to include looking at this when doing maintenance and a KUDOS to Walter v-drive for durability.

As followup I ran the boat yesterday to check for any leaks and confirm levels. I noticed a real improvement in smoothness of shifting and also sound levels. I had a rumbling at neutral and idle speeds which i figured was vibration of the teak swim step. It is much quieter now.

Filler up,

You're welcome to the manual. I can't fully siphon or pump out my V-drive. Can't get the hose past the gearing, etc. to the bottom to get enough oil out. Instead, I have to drain it using the square-head plug at the bottom, stern-port corner of the unit. Maybe that could be a contributor to why you didn't get much oil out?

I understand the siphoning problem, but shouldnt the dipstick read true when the boat is at rest in the water? Mine was barely wet prior and now shows at the full mark with the addition of the 1quart of 30weight. Thanks for any input.

you have an oil drain on the drive

My 04 Malibu the drain plug in on the back side bottom right. It's a square plug 3/8 I think. I use a small dish drain some oil into it put the plug back in suction the oil out. I keep doing that until it's empty. It's a total pain but it's the only way I can get it fully drained.

Mine takes one quart of SAE 30w.

What kind of oil do you use in a v-drive? Trans oil? engine oil? any other kind?

^^^ My 06 Sanger with Walters V-Drive, and this is straight from Walters, should only be filled with NON- Detergent 30wt engine oil. And they were very specific about non-detergent.

Walter Vdrive manual indicates non-detergent 30 weight oil. I found it at Wal-mart under the name Accel 30 weight gear oil about 3 bucks for the quart.

thanks, but can you tell me what is non detergent?

Non-detergent is a eingine oil that doesnt have detergent...basicaly. In the early days no detergent was used in engine oil and they found the inside of the engines would form alot of sludge. They came up with an additive for oil that would "clean" as it worked, a type of "detergent".

The V-drive probably has a slow leak. Pretty common problem with them. They are really tough units, though. Just keep it topped off.