Froth in Saildrive Oil after Major Overhaul

[Soggy Paws]

Hi all, thanks for being the sounding board for us as we transition from Newbs to "Made all the Mistakes"... with our new-to-us St. Francis 44.

A few months ago we had a crack in our saildrive seal that let salt water into the bell housing.  So we hauled out, took the saildrive out (and the other one, too), took it completely apart, replaced all the seals and bearings and anything else we could within reason.  Every piece was thoroughly cleaned and meticulously inspected.  Then we put it all back together, and did a thorough epoxy job on the outside of the saildrive leg (to protect from corrosion).

We have carefully re-assembled the saildrives and re-installed them.  After installing them, we added a new saildrive oil header tank (similar to this one:

http://hackingfamily.com/Cruise_Info/Equipment/SailDrives.htm#OilHeaderTanks )  The lines going to the header tank are clear, so we can see exactly what the oil looks like.

So, when we went to turn on the engines for the first time yesterday (a half hour before our scheduled launch time!!), we were concerned to see a "froth" on top of the oil in the lines.  I am familiar with what "water in oil" looks like, and this is not what this looks like.  In walking around the marina and talking with other people with saildrives, I asked each one of them... have you ever checked your saildrive oil AFTER you ran the engine?  And nobody here ever has.  And without the clear lines, I would not have known about the froth.  Turn the engines off, wait a little while, and check the saildrive oil, and the froth is gone.  There is no increase in oil level.

After googling a little, talking with a few knowledgeable people here at the marina, and thinking about the problem, I'm wondering if this is just air in the oil frothing a bit as we run the engines.  We are still not in the water yet--just running using a fresh water hose into the cooling water intake system.  I am also wondering if our canted saildrives might make this more or less likely to happen (all the saildrive people here have normal SD's sitting straight up and down).

We are using brand new (at least newly-purchased) locally-procured 90-weight automotive gear oil.  The oil level is within the High and Low marks on the dipstick.

Anyone with any helpful advice?  We waived off launching yesterday, but are sitting on the trolley awaiting a decision to launch or re-block.  Next launch window is in about 6 hours.

Thanks,

Dave & Sherry McCampbell

s/v Soggy Paws

In the Philippines (soon headed for Indonesia)

[Randy Abernethy]

Hey Dave and Sherry,

I had the froth on a brand new (well 6k nm from South Africa to FL) Saint Francisc 50 . She has SD 50s and I had Quicksilver in there (essentially SAE 90) and the froth freaked me out too. Unfortunately I did not know what salt water in oil looked like, so I tasted it, did experiments, etc. Long story short, 50,000 nm later, the froth was not a problem :-).

Best,

Randy

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[Bill Duning]

I haven't seen froth but as a practice I run full synthetic gear oil (75w90) as it does not loose viscosity in the event of water intrusion. My guess is the froth is just a result of moving the oil around and would not be too concerned. 

Cheers, Bill

S/V Tribe 

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Cheers, Bill

...each day is a gift and not a given right

s/v Tribe
http://watertracks.wordpress.com/

[Don Wilson]

Dave and Sherry: for what it is worth, I also checked oil after a run and had froth plus oil was down a bit from full. I have not added any oil since we bought Tackless Too. 

So I freaked a bit as it was just before we left Florida. Added a little oil and watched like crazy for several runs. Little froth but only after running, never on cold start. 

Decided best action was not to check it so much, but that is just me!!

Sent from my iPhone