Yahama 200 SWS

[family guy]

HELP!!! I went out to a local reef here in NJ and on my way back my port side engine oil alarm sounded.. I had put a gallon of oil into the port side oil tank before i went out.. I had oil in the tank.. Had to ride in approx. 10 nm with the other engine.. Got back to the dock and the reservoir in the engine was dry.. anyone have this problem?? Possibly the sender unit or the pump.. I'm thinking possibly a clog?? Any suggestions or ideas?? Thanks..

Family Guy!!

[GoneFission]

Check the cap on the engine tank - it may be loose or they also sometimes crack if you over-tighten them.  Also look for a kink in the lines to/from the oil tank and make sure the oil tank (do you have one or two?) is sealed.  The engine tank is filled with oil by pressurizing the main tank, so look for a reason why the main tank is not being pressurized.  

Good luck - see ya on the water!

[flounderpounder225]

The engine (Or main Tank) tank is fed from the Remote Tank (In your boat) on demand by a pump in the remote tank,  There is a float in the engine main tank that when at a certain level turns the remote tank pump on and flows oil to the main tank.  There are a few things that will cause a problem.  The pump on the remote tank is bad, the float switch in the main engine tank is bad, Kinked line as mentioned earlier, clogged filter pick up in the remote tank, also there is a switch that will not allow the main tank to send oil when the engine is raised above a certain angle, such as in the tilt (not trim mode).  To check the pump in the remote tank disconnect the connector and rig a jumper to it to test the motor, the float in the main engine tank can be checked with a multi meter, to make sure the modes are working, at one level, it should turn the pump on, at the lowest level it should sound the alarm, sounds like your alarm is working, I would go for the remote tank pump, either corroded bad connection, clogged pick up, or bad pump.

Here is an old article that fully describes testing the system and determining the cause.
http://www.bwbmag.com/output.cfm?id=942 ... tionid=308

Marc

[gran398]

Thanks for the input....could you just come over, for a sec....

Sure wish I had you guys' mechanical/diagnostic ability...but I don't, and never did.

Love to work with Bondo, tho.

 

[family guy]

Thanks for the replys.. I am heading back to the boat this weekend and will check to see if all the things suggested will fix it.. I do remember seeing one of my tanks possibly not totally sealed for pressure.. I'll   laugh if that was the cause.. If not I'm going to check everything else too.. Thanks again for the replys...  

Family Guy

[RickK]

I had the exact same thing happen on my Yammie 250 and it ended up being the computer.

[family guy]

Well the cause of the problem was the oil had sludge in the tanks. Actually both tanks had sludge in them.. This clogged my feed line to the engine.. The mechanic said he thought water got into the tanks some how?? Anyway, he only charged me for one hour of labor and fixed the problem.. Again, thanks to all who replied.. Much appreciated..

Family Guy

[GoneFission]

Sludge is generally not a good word when connected with engines - glad to hear you got it worked out without costing an arm and/or leg...  

[flounderpounder225]

X2... always nice, when it's something simple, and you learned something from it.  
Marc

[family guy]

Well I finally got through the summer.. Went through 2 float switches.. I am starting to get frustrated with this oil problem. My mechanic said the oil pump is burning out the float switches. So back to square one again.. Lets replace this oil pump.. Anyone else have this problem?? Also, anyone know where I can get an original owners maunel?? Looked on ebay and no luck..

[Aswaff400]

we actually just had this problem on a 23 grady with twin 150's...

we replaced both pumps and both sending units as pump on port motor was bad, sending unit on the starboard was suspected to be bad. the owner said go ahead and replace all of them. we did, still having the problem on the star. engine... we are suspecting a ECM issue...

ill check on monday where we get our yammie parts  

[gw204]

If your mechanic hasn't already cleaned the tanks, now is the time.

When I repowered my old 25' Grady with a pair of used 200 Yams, I thoroughly went through the oiling system on both motors.  The following is a recap of what I did (or seem to remember doing...it was a few years ago).


Oil Tanks

Each engine (I bought them separately) came with a partially full oil tank.  I emptied the oil from each and cleaned both tanks by swishing around about a quart of diesel in them (after removing the oil pump and lines).  That got all the residual oil and grime out.  I followed that up with a few batches of HOT soapy water, then a few batches of plain hot water and lastly set them out in the sun to dry.  They were squeaky clean when I was done.


Oil Pumps

I ran a bit of diesel through the pump by putting the pickup into a small container of diesel and then appling 12V to the wiring harness.  Once that was done, I did the same with some TCW3 to flush out the diesel.  Then I bagged the pumps until I was ready to reinstall.

Here are the cleaned tanks and cleaned/bagged pumps.




Tank Brackets

Rusty areas were sanded down, primed and repainted.  I then stuck some plastic washers to the bottom of the tanks w/ 4200 (they were positioned so the mounting screws when through the middle of the washers).  This was done to keep the tanks up off the mounting surface to try and minimize the amount of water that could get trapped underneath.








Tank and Bracket Reinstallation

Tank brackets remounted (pay no attention to the primer spot).  It looks like I put some smaller plastic washers under the screw heads to isolate the dissimilar metals (SS and plain steel).



The oil pumps were slid back into their recesses in the tanks, I installed new filters on the lines running from the tanks to the pumps, ran all new oil lines from the tanks to the engines, put the tanks back in the brackets, connected the remote fill lines and filled the tanks w/ new oil.

NOTE: I think I waited a little while before moving on and this allowed oil to seep through the filters and into the pump, thus priming the system.

Engines

I drained both onboard tanks by removing the clear nipple from the bottom.  Once that was done, I routed the new lines from the oil tanks into a catch bin and then manually activated the remote pumps using the switch under the cowling.  This pushed new oil through the lines and served to clean out any debris that may have been in the lines.  Then I connected the lines to the onboard tanks, cleaned and reinstalled the nipples and filled the tanks using the switches.  I may have only filled them half way because I seem to remember later running the engines and letting the system fill the rest of the way automatically.

Oil pumps were adjusted according to the process received from Andy and Shipyard Island.


IMPORTANT

If you go through all this, start off w/ a 50:1 premix until you are sure the system is operating properly.

[RickK]

we actually just had this problem on a 23 grady with twin 150's...

we replaced both pumps and both sending units as pump on port motor was bad, sending unit on the starboard was suspected to be bad. the owner said go ahead and replace all of them. we did, still having the problem on the star. engine... we are suspecting a ECM issue...

ill check on monday where we get our yammie parts  

When I was buying my 230 I took it out (JJ was with me) and we ran it for about 10 minutes out a nasty, windy, snotty Manatee River.  Anyway at the 10ish mark the engine idled down - luckily we had 2 mechanics from the boat place with us - the internal oil tank was close to empty and the ECU wasn't sending the signal to the external tank to send oil (or however it works) - anyway, it was the ECU.

[seabob4]

Brian,
Excellent post!!  And for those whose Yammi oil tank brackets have seen a lot better days than Brian's (I've replaced some that have literally disintegrated!), this outfit now makes some nice ones, Aluminum and Stainless...http://www.artecindustries.com/Marine-B ... c_142.html