oil leaking?
 

I have a 1988 150 mercury o,b,
today after a good day of fishing when i put my boat on the trailer and tilted the engine up all the way i noticed oil dripping from the bottm of the cowl. I took the cowl off and checked the resivior tank and it was full, i never noticed this before but i really never looked. my question is this
is this normal and if not what should i look for and how dangerous is it to run the engine
thank you

Its from trolling or riding in hard and not running long enough to burn it up. Happens all the time! I use to get home and have crap all over the place. Some one else had the problem not long ago also

Yup that was me....additionally when MJ gave some advice to the problem he also said that he had to replace a sensor that filled his engine mounted resevoir....I have been eyeing that as the culprit on my Yamaha as well because I have seen some signs of fresh oil dripping down the sides of the resevoir....either way it appears my engine has been doing whatever it is for some time so I soak up the little bit here and there and all seems ok for me.

On the merc I would check the airbox to see if it is coming from there. Most likely it is just some accumulated oil in the bottom of the airbox running out when you trim it up.

probably nothing serious, but merc uses pressure from the crankcase to push the oil out of the large tank to the smaller tank on the engine. check your top on your small tank and make sure it is tight. also check the oil lines going to the pump and from the pump tothe fuel line. i'm probably being a little paranoid, but my dad burnt up a 40 because of a split hose.

There is no such thing as being paranoid when it comes to fire on a boat.. There's only cautious and extra cautious....everything else is just foolish. I'd say you were right on the money Phat. :beer:

make sure its not the oil cap, they crack easily, look at teh top edge when you tighten it, it will open up some when you tighten

I have a 115 Johnson VRO and a Johnson 9.9 kicker and after I troll with either there is always oil coming from the exhaust and through the prop but I don't think I have seen it come from the cowl, but it is a milky brown color not fresh looking..since there is no oil tank under the cowls I guess i couldn't have fresh oil leaking..lol..

I'd reccomend trying the PENNSOIL synthetic blend for the oil coming out of the exhaust and such. I used to get this when I used QUIKSILVER(had 3 gallons that came with the boat), but it stopped with the PENNSOIL.

i dont want to sound stupid but what is the air box? is it that black cover that covers the carbs