Time for an overhaul??...

[jodiver]

Hi Don, I am thoroughly enjoying your website, keep up the great work. My name is Joe Cavallo, I purchased a '78 Columbia 8.7m last December with a gasoline A-4 as its powerplant. The boat had not been in regular use in probably a couple of years, but it was still running ok, althought it burns oil more than I would want. I have been doing regular maintenance to it in preparation for sailing it to Miami from Marathon in the FL Keys, I just installed electronic ignition and a crankcase vent system, tuned it, changed the oil, installed a bigger waterpump, and bought a heat exchanger from you in preparation for making the cooling system closed. I went sailing yesterday and while going out the channel hoisting sails the engine died on me. I was forward and didn't hear the way it sounded, but my wife said it just started making these sounds and then quit. I was able to get into the engine compartment, there was a lot of oil on the bulkhead at the rear of the engine and in the bilge, also my hot wire to the coil was separated from the ring connector. There were 4-5' seas and I had no one really experienced to take the helm, I sailed all the way around Key Biscayne and into the bay and calmer waters. I was able to connect the wire and start the engine, my oil pressure was steady 50 psi but the engine ran very rough I could not see any oil being discharged anywhere. I continued under sail all the way to the first bridge then started the engine, I only had about a 3/4 mile motor to the anchorage, she ran until I throttled down ready to drop anchor then she stalled out. I was not able to restart it...talk to me my man!

[jhwelch]

There are only so many ways for oil to escape from the engine. I'd
first suspect that the dipstick was rattling around too freely and oil
got out that way. The way my motor is connected to hoses and wires
it pretty much traps the dipstick unless I twist the top to pull it out.

I've noticed that in my motor unless I make sure that I've pushed the
shifter all the way into forwards there can sometimes be a little
slop between the shift lever on the motor and the clevis pin that
attaches to the shift cable. The lever can vibrate quite a bit at times
and I've wondered if this has been a contributing cause to some oil
pressure issues I've had in the past.

-jonathan

[Don Moyer]

I'm seeing 3 problematic symptoms in your report:

1) An oil leak (seemingly from the rear of the engine).

2) There was at least one occasion when the engine made a threatening sound.

3) The engine is currently unable to be started.

In case you missed them, I'm attaching two pdf troubleshooting guides to help you check out your possible oil leak and to help you get started (no pun intended) in troubleshooting your non-starting engine.

We'll clearly need more information regarding the noise your wife heard before we can speculate as to its cause, most important of which is whether or not the noise is still present. If it is, you might try removing the plug leads one at a time to see if the noise changes significantly when one of them is removed.

Regards,

Don