Water in my v-drive oil

I checked my v-drive oil after we had taken the boat for a short outing... It appears the v-drive had ingested some water (creamy colored oil). I searched the forums looking for some possible answers/solutions with no real luck. I read some threads that indicated the oil cooler was probably the problem, other than water trickling down the dip-stick... I have no experience with the oil cooler, I don't even know where it's located. Can anyone point me in the right direction or have a suggestion/fix? 2001 Mastercraft X-Star.

Thanks!

A cracked case is about the only way water can exchange with the oil, at least in a Walter unit. The cooling water passes thru a cavity on the top of the unit, and should be drained during winterization (little pipe plug on the side of the unit, an inch or so from the top).

01 xstar has a Hurth unit so ignore the post from trace. You are correct the most likely source will be the oil cooler which I think from memory is mounted to the front (pulley end) of the engine on the drivers side (could be under the manifold if it is in the earlier location). It is a cylinder that is mounted in line with the water pipe running from the raw water pump (mounted on the crank pulley) and will have two other hoses connected to that run back to the top of the gearbox near the selector (these are filled with gearbox oil). Remove the oil cooler and take it to a radiator repair shop and get them to pressure test it or just get a marine mechanic to do it.

you probably have a bad out-take gasket (where the shaft comes out of the tranny). the older 205v's are known to have this problem. if you get enough water in your bilge, that part of your transmission will sit in water, and it pits, causing it to leak (oil out, as well as water in)

happened to me last season. you have to pull the tranny and put in a new gasket, and a "sneaky sleeve". the "sneaky sleeve" is what MC made to help solve this problem.

what i did to identify it, was wiped the entire bilge squeaky clean. i then slid a paper towel under the tranny to see where the oil was leaking out. if you do see that oil has been dripping from the tranny housing, then the out-take gasket is your most probable issue.

So are we talking about the transmission or the V-drive? The last 3 posts all seem to refer to the tranny. I'm familiar with the Hurth ZF tranny, but does Hurth even make a V-drive?

Thanks guys... I'm going to pull the cooler and have it tested, as well as look around to see if there's any leaked fluid in the bilge (I looked, initially, and didn't see any... But I want to double check).

Not sure if the herth v drive has a vent or not but sometimes when the bilge gets too full of water it can seep into the vent. I had this happen when I purchased my boat. drain the v drive completely including the oil lines and refill and see if it fixes. I actually had no idea when his happened. I should have checked the v drive fluid before I purchased but I got in a hurry. I actually ran the boat about thirty hours before anything went wrong an then the v drive started shuddering. When I checked it sure enough it looked like milkshake. Also I had tons of metal shaving when it was drained. I had a shop take it apart and they found nothing structurally wrong and all the gears were fine. To think that the v drive lasted 30 hours with about a gallon of water in it is a testament to their durability. Luckily the dealer I purchase from refunded my service costs. 200 hour later and I have had no problems. But as I said if you don't have a vent like my Walters then most likely it's cracked due to improper winterization. Did this just start at the end if the year? Also in the Walters there is a gasket that can go bad and cause this as well. Good luck

Is the problem the v drive or the transmission?? They are separate housings and take different types of lubricants.

I was under the impression the v-drive and tranny was one unit... Some makes are, and some aren't?

Yes, this instance is the 1st time it's happened. We probably have 50+ hours since it was winterized last winter... No issues with water in the fluid all season.

if you pull the dipstick out of your transmission, does the fluid look milky? if yes, i'm willing to bet it's the gasket that i mentioned above.

The transmission and V-drive are separate units that take different fluids. Tranny fluid is usually red, and V-drive fluid is usually a honey color.

No v drive is a small square block at the end of the bell housing or transmission. V drive is lubricated with standard engine oil while the transmission is lubricated with transmission fluid. If you look behind your v drive you should see your tranny it is much larger an the fluid is usually a red color and is not oil. I'm pretty sure all boats have a transmission and a v drive. The v drive is not a transmission it is a transfer case similar to how a rear end is related to a transmission on a car.

Dies your unit have a vent or breather on it? Also have you had a ridiculous amount of water in the bilge any time recently?

Originally Posted by superair502

...V drive is lubricated with standard engine oil while the transmission is lubricated with transmission fluid. If you look behind your v drive you should see your tranny it is much larger an the fluid is usually a red color and is not oil....

This is the case for a majority of the boats out there, however, regular 15w40 engine oil is also as a substitue for the red fluid in your transmission.

I had an '01/'02 Xstar back in the day and it did the same thing. Here's what happened to me. One of my had tanks developed a small crack that leaked water slowly into the hull. I didn't realize what happened until it was too late. One day, my bilge pump went out and water pooled in my bilge. Not much, but enough so that when I took the boat out that day at the ramp, water rushed back and washed over the transmission. In the 01 early 02 xstars, there is a transmision vent that is placed low on the transmission and allows water to spill into the transmission under such conditions.

Here's the bad news. If you have any fluid in your bilge, then your transmission seal has gone out due to the water. I was first quoted 3k by my local MC dealer (this was back in '04) to repair the seal. I was told that the motor was going to have to come out of the boat. Well, I knew 4 different people where I lived who had Xstars that had also had this problem. MC had fixed their boats under warranty. Well, I had purchased my Xstar used, so the dealer wouldn't touch it. However, I talked to the factory and, as a good will gesture, they took the boat in and fixed it. The factory ended up pulling the floor out of the boat and putting in a new transmission and seal. I was told that there was rust already starting to form (after a matter of weeks) in the transmission due to the water. I believe this because, obviously, they wouldn't have put in a new transmission if they didn't need to.

If you don't have any fluid in your bilge, then your seal should be fine. What I would do is drain the tranny and flush it at least twice before filing it back up. Your problem may be as simply as mine was - you just washed some water over that vent.

Good luck man.

I follow as strictly as practical what the owner manual says:--

transmission fluid for the tranny (eg., a form of hydraulic FLUID, and yes, usually red) and

engine oil for the V-drive (ie., a form of gear OIL, and yes, usually honey-colored, at least when fresh).

chattwake is referring to the same thing that I described. maybe instead of "gasket", i meant to say "seal".

unfortunatley my seal was bad. however, i caught it right away (within an hour or so), and I didn't need to replace the transmission. last summer they quoted me $1500 to fix the seal. i ended up doing it my self for a few hundred bucks, and only two days of down time.

to replace the seal, you do have to pull the transmission, and raise the back (actually on the bowside, because the engines in backwards) of the engine. the hardest part of the entire thing is aligning your shaft when you put it all back together.

Chattwake may have nailed it... The ramp we used is insanely steep and pretty short. During the launch the boat had to sit on the trailer for a longer period of time as I jumped from the truck to the boat, and... We did have some water in our center compartment.

Pretty sure that Is what I said at the start if the thread. Why can't people distinguish the tranny and v drive are separate?

Mason, Trace ... there are 2 different types of v-drive gearboxes the earlier ones had a stand type direct-drive box with a v-drive bolted to the rear of it and these use 2 different oils i.e. Red oil for the conventional gearbox and usually around a gear oil for the v-drive unit. ZF Hurth, Walter and PCM all produce an integrated vdrive gearbox where all the components are physically in a single housing and therefore share the same oil, these usually use dextron III or in some cases 15-40w engine oil to reduce gear noise.

Yeah, if your '01 doesn't have the center pie plate and drain plug, you really need to store it on a slant, nose up, and pull the rear plug every time you pull the boat out. The boats have a nasty habbit of storing rain in the nose and then when you back down the ramp to put in, the water rushes over the tranny.

Don't you have an update Blake?

There's no water in my tranny at the moment.