Volvo 120 saildrive

[medsailor1]

Hi
Two weeks ago I change the seals on my saildrive , I also notice the shaft had a score so I fitted a skf speedy sleeve , is I have done a few times before without any problems .
This time two weeks on and I have water in the drive again ,
I had check the oil every day and there been no sign of water yesterday we had to motor for 4 hours and when checked the oil was milky .
I use genuine Volvo seals .
As any one else had this problem , or any other suggestion .
My concean now is if I haul out again and once strip I can't find any problems .
Thanks

[Thumbs Up]

There is a chance that it is the drain plug o ring. Overfilling even a little will cause these drives to leak. Instead of a speedy sleeve I have successfully shimmed the new seals so they don't bear on the groove. With patience you can wiggle a small diameter stiff plastic tube to the bottom of the drive from the dipstick hole to extract the milky oil.

[medsailor1]

Originally Posted by Thumbs Up

There is a chance that it is the drain plug o ring. Overfilling even a little will cause these drives to leak. Instead of a speedy sleeve I have successfully shimmed the new seals so they don't bear on the groove. With patience you can wiggle a small diameter stiff plastic tube to the bottom of the drive from the dipstick hole to extract the milky oil.

It's only been filled to the min mark so I could keep an eye on the level ,
The drain plus is a possibility as I didn't change the O ring , but surely if it was going to leak it would puss oil out ?

I don't think the pipe would reach to the bottom of the saildrive on a 120se I know on the new 130 there an extra pipe where you can put a sucking pipe in to drain al the oil out .

As I said the worry is stripping it again and finding othering .
Thanks for the reply .

[medsailor1]

Whats size is the thread on the dip stick? Thinking of making up a header tank for the oil and don't want to mix diffent metal parts on the saildrive .

[Jahwork]

Greetings all,

I installed header tanks for both of my Yanmar SD20’s last year. I can send pics of them tomorrow when I am down at the boat. The threads for the Yanmar are:

Drain plugs M10x1.50
SD20 oil cap/dipstick M33x2 hydraulic drain plug

I imagine they are the same for your saildrive as well. I was able to find a stainless hydraulic drain plug that fit the dipstick port with an O-ring seal. I then drilled and tapped it in the center so I could install a hose barb. Then used a plastic universal “expansion” tank with a vented cap and a molded in hose barb fitting on the bottom. I mounted the tank as high as I could in the engine space and connected the hose barbs with a 1/4” chunk of fuel hose. The expansion tanks are the “white” semi-translucent plastic that you can easily see the fluid level through. I used a black permanent marker (Sharpie) to mark the oil level so i can see at a glance if I am gaining or losing fluid.

So far they are working as designed.

Safe Journeys,
~Jake

[medsailor1]

Originally Posted by Jahwork

Greetings all,

I installed header tanks for both of my Yanmar SD20’s last year. I can send pics of them tomorrow when I am down at the boat. The threads for the Yanmar are:

Drain plugs M10x1.50
SD20 oil cap/dipstick M33x2 hydraulic drain plug

I imagine they are the same for your saildrive as well. I was able to find a stainless hydraulic drain plug that fit the dipstick port with an O-ring seal. I then drilled and tapped it in the center so I could install a hose barb. Then used a plastic universal “expansion” tank with a vented cap and a molded in hose barb fitting on the bottom. I mounted the tank as high as I could in the engine space and connected the hose barbs with a 1/4” chunk of fuel hose. The expansion tanks are the “white” semi-translucent plastic that you can easily see the fluid level through. I used a black permanent marker (Sharpie) to mark the oil level so i can see at a glance if I am gaining or losing fluid.

So far they are working as designed.

Safe Journeys,
~Jake

Thanks Jakel.
What's your option on the header tank , how much do you think it help to stop water coming in ?

[Jahwork]

I think the theory makes sense to me. Oil being lighter than water and the elevated oil level creating a “head” pressure theoretically should keep water out. Sometimes theories are great in textbooks and not so great in the real world. So far in practice the theory seems to be proving true. I completely rebuilt my saildrives with all new bearings, seals, diaphragms etc... I have prob less than 20 hours on them since then, as I have been rebuilding the rest of the boat, so haven’t used it much. As such, my “test” is probably not the best sample. After I get more hours of runtime it should be more telling. I do like the fact that I can check the fluid level at a glance and hopefully catch any issues early.

Prob not much help but it is the best I can do.

Safe Journeys,
~Jake