Oil pan drained into the bilge

[ilauder]

Okay, the first casualty of the boat refurbish just happened. To a part I wasn't working on...

Disassembled a lot of the engine (just the bolt on parts like starter, alternator, valve covers, wiring harness, etc) a week or so ago without any issue. Left the oil in and didn't touch the oil filter or oil fill tube, just taped off the oil filter.

Past couple days spent cleaning and prepping and painting the engine block without any issue.

Till this morning, went out to bolt some parts back on and the entire oil pan had drained out into the bilge. No oil was anywhere on the block or out of the cap on the end of the oil drain hose.

Only thing I can figure is jostling around the oil drain hose in the bilge when I was moving plastic sheeting around underneath the engine bent the hose a bit too much and my guess is it drained out of the connection to the oil pan. Its so tight under there its the one thing I can't get to to really check yet.

So my question is how do I fix this? I assume I have to raise the engine block enough using the 4 large nuts where it attaches to the hull and replace it. And probably that means disconnecting the drive shaft as well. Is there a specific technique to do this right?

And is there a specific part # I should look for the oil drain hose? I haven't started searching for that yet.

[ilauder]

I think what I need to do is pour in a little bit of new oil and watch for where it is leaking. If its around the drain plug then from another thread I read you don't have to remove the engine. Remove the whole oil pan then it should be an easier fix, replace the oil pan gasket and reattach. Just difficult getting to the bolts in the back. ????

[CantRepeat]

Is the oil drain plug hitting the bottom of the boat?

[tjrowbot]

I had a similar thing happen to me when installing a new steering cable. I was actually able to tighten the drain hose connection at the pan. PITA to get to, but problem solved.

[ilauder]

It doesn't look like its hitting the hull, looks like there is just barely a bit of clearance under the plug. This thing hasn't been touched in 25 years. I didn't move the engine at all either, just painted it in place. When I was doing the painting I was running the plastic sheeting back and forth and moving stuff around so it could have wiggled the hose back and forth a few times and could have bent it around a little bit when I was pulling out the plastic sheet at the end. And I've had to move the cables around that touch that hose around that area. I'll try to see if it can be tightened in place first.

[Bartnich]

That paint job looks sweet, by the way.

[ilauder]

Thanks, in the last few days it went from looking like this:



to this:



Redoing all the hoses with braided stainless steel and braided wire covers on the wiring harness, should look great when done. Being the first time I've ever torn apart a vehicle engine like this I hope it all still runs when I get it done. I may have more questions...