Small Leak in Engine Room

kordo

I have a small leak coming from the area around the bottom of my starboard transom plate.  Just a few ounces a week.  I think it is due to the transom plate bolts needing tightening.  My boat is a 2011 model.  I have managed to tighten 6 of the bolts but am having a real hard time figuring out a way to tighten the two at the bottom.  I can't squeeze myself in there and I can't access the bolts from the front of the engine even with a 3 foot extension to my ratchet wrench.  Any ideas?  Has anyone managed to tighten the two bottom bolts?  I'm pretty sure that after 10 years they can work themselves a bit loose.  Thanks.

rasbury

Well, not to ruin your day but the likelihood that the nuts have come lose is minimal...more likely a seal gone bad or a warp in the transom- if that is where the water is coming from which is pretty darn hard to tell...any recent service work where maybe a boot is not tight? A more likely suspect would be your steering pin which again, it's hard to see- the water will travel down...get a good flash light and look for water paths- where there might be some residual kunk or even corrosion starting to happen...if your Merc, the transom seal is just awful and if indeed where your leak is, making it tighter is probably not going to solve anything and the motor /transom asy will probably have to be removed to find the problem....there are just a zillion places back there for water to come in unfortunately and it may take someone with that experience to find it for you...steering pin I would think the first place to look- I did a whole transom motor pull and redo and still had a leak....finally found that one of the exhaust boots I had not tightened the clamp on but would only leak when the motor was running and down around the back side of the L and took me forever to figure that one out...my seal was bad for sure...all good now.

kordo

Thanks.  I'll look into the steering pin, hopefully that is it.  I had the port engine transom seal and steering pin replaced a couple years ago.  Not fun.  The thing is, the leak is intermittent.  Some days the engine room bilge is bone dry and other days, I find a few ounces of water and can see a path from the bottom of the transom plate to the middle back of the bilge.  

YYZRC

I had the same on the 330. The volume of water depended which way I left the drives pointed (assuming no rain). 

kordo

Hmm.  I'll give that a try, that might indicate the steering pin is the issue.  On the other hand, it could indicate a bad seal that is weak on one side.  It's a mystery.  One other factor is that I have put my dingy on the swim platform and it might be pushing the boat down in the water just enough to put the weak spot/small crack/weak seal/loose hose etc. under water.  I will put the dinghy in the water for a week or two and see if that changes anything.  Thanks.