Burning Oil in Starboard Engine

[Frank Marshall]

I think I have drawn the short straw, or at least a bad engine. The starboard engine is burning oil. 2 quarts, and less than 10 hours on the engine. The back right side of the boat looks like my LS2000, black with soot. I plan on taking it to the dealer soon. Hopefully this will be a warranty issue. I did follow break-in procedures.

I don't know how they're going to get an engine out of there. It's a tight fit.

Any experiences, thoughts or suggestions?
Thanks

 

[Scottintexas]

When did you take possession of your boat and how many hours did it have on it then?
How often have you been checking the oil, every trip?
Do you see blue smoke when you are idling or accelerating?
Assuming you don't see any drips or oil in the bilge it must be burning?
If you're going to take it out anymore I would suggest documenting run time vs. oil level dropping to give more info to the mechanic.

I've never heard of this issue before so I would be guessing Yamaha wouldn't have any problem stepping up on this one.

 

[Frank Marshall]

I bought it new last Nov. with 0.3 hours on each engine. The dealer added oil before I took delivery. I checked the oil before the third trip, added 1 quart and thought break-in burn. Before the fourth time out, checked it again, and added 3/4 of quart. After that trip is when the soot started showing on the back exhaust area of the boat. I haven't noticed visible smoke, but it must be there with the way the black soot has shown up. Engine compartment is clean, and I'm not taking the boat out again, until I get this resolved.

 

[highanddryinco]

Wow that bites. Hope all goes well. Keep us in the loop on the progress.

 

[Earfixr]

Did the plugs look all nasty? Can you do a compression test and compare the good side to the bad side?

 

[itsdgm]

@Frank Marshall sorry to hear about your issue. I’m pretty sure that this is the first time I’ve heard of an issue like yours. I know saying that doesn’t help you fix your problem, but I do think that it should bring direct attention from Yamaha when your dealer contacts them for warranty work. Imho, just take it to the dealer with your findings and experiences and let them handle it. Also, make sure that you’ll like to be active in getting this resolved. It might be a pita requesting to see what they see before work is done. But it’s the only way to come away confident in a shops work of they have to back it up by showing you their findings and let you look at the parts that they find defective. I’m pretty sure that there’s no other way to fix an issue like this without tearing into the engine. The first things that come to mind that would cause this would be either something wrong with a piston (rings or a cylinder wall issue) or a valve guide. I can think of a few other causes, but those would probably be the two most likely causes. If it was my new boat, with a warranty ......... I’d let them go to work on it and keep me updated on finding (even if it’s as simple as sending phone pics) on their findings. If it does require serious engine work, the natural desire would be to get a “new” replacement engine to go into your new boat. Unfortunately, in the past with the timing chain failure warranty work, Yamaha chose to order an entire set of engine parts and have the dealer assemble a new engine in their shop, not send them a factory built engine to drop in the boat. So make sure that you have confidence in the dealer your working with and follow it closely. Im feeling for you, keep us posted.

 

[Betik]

if I my memory serves me right, @Speedling had a similar issue on his boat and it went away on its own once he started checking the oil on a level surface.
@Speedling please correct me if I am wrong, there is in the back on my mind and I might be confusing the person.

 

[Frank Marshall]

Resolved!!! I think. Too much oil. Us old farts have always been told to check the oil level when the engine is warm. Reality proved out to be a slight difference, but not worth the pain of pulling the boat out of the garage, hooking up a hose, then running for 5 minutes. However things have changed. The TR-1 has 2 oil reservoirs. The standard one we're all use too, the crankcase oil pan, but it also has an oil reservoir on top of the engine. I suspect that it is a closed loop system to the lower oil pan. Since it's a closed loop, when the oil cools down and pressure drops, it siphons oil from below up into the upper reservoir. That reduces the amount of oil measured on the dip stick significantly!!! The engine has to be warmed up, increasing the pressure of the upper reservoir (closed loop) to force oil down to the crankcase oil pan in order to get an accurate oil measurement.

I kept reading a low on the dip stick, until I warmed it up and then it was above full. Now it's time to drain and replace the oil to get it back in line. The service manual points out 2 places to pump oil out from and 2 places to put 1/2 the oil back into. One's on top of the engine, and the other is where we check the oil level.

Oops!

 

[Tailwaters]

Interesting. Thanks for sharing. I'll be performing my first oil change when I put the boat out from storage.

 

[Frank Marshall]

The service manual is not available for the 210 FSH yet. I purchased a 1 month online access to AR210. It has the 3 cylinder MR-1 oil/filter change there.