298 slowly taking on water

nhuyck · **Joined:** Sun Jun 07, 2015 9:41 am **Posts:** 6

Have a 2002 298 Vista with twin 5.0 Gxi Volvo DP. Boat takes on water slowly. Probably bilges once per day. Are there any ideas out there to isolate problem?

Rick2752 · **Posted:** Sun Jun 07, 2015 2:04 pm

Do you have a trailer? I had an issue taking on water but it was much faster than yours. Take the boat out of the water and let everything dry out. Fill the bilge with water as high as you can without hurting anything and jack the front of the trailer up as high as you can. Mine had a leak where the outdrive mounted to the transom. This may also help you find other problems.

nhuyck · **Joined:** Sun Jun 07, 2015 9:41 am **Posts:** 6

rick2752, how did you fix the problem?

alex8q4 · **Posted:** Sun Jun 07, 2015 7:19 pm

Drive shaft bellows could also be letting water in.

How old are they?

Surface Interval · **Posted:** Sun Jun 07, 2015 8:07 pm

You'll need to get almost all the water out of the bilge to start. There are a few areas to look. Having two engines just doubles the places to look and the difficulty being able to see.
1. Look at the bottom of each transom cut out for each out drive. The outdrive mounting plate on the inside and the transom shield on the outside are bolted to each other through the transom. There is a gasket between the transom and the transom shield on the outside. This gasket sometimes leaks. If you are lucky you might be able to tighten the 6 bolts that hold these together. Otherwise you are looking at pulling at least the outdrive, if not the engine, to replace the gasket. It is not the ideal fix, but I have run a bead of 3M 5200 around the Transom shield with good results.

2. You might have a water hose leaking somewhere.

3. If the driveshaft bellows is leaking, you probably also have a bad gimbal bearing because the water has to go through the bearing to get into the engine compartment. If the driveshaft bellows is leaking you will also need to look at the driveshaft u-joint bearings and the outdrive itself for water damage.

4. Look at the exhaust Y-pipe and the rubber hose connections.

5. Look at the engine blocks to make sure you don't have a leak.

Hope this helps.

Rick2752 · **Posted:** Mon Jun 08, 2015 8:08 am

My issue was that boat had been in saltwater, then sat for a couple years. The bolts that hold the out drive to the transom had corroded and were holding it off the transom. There are like 6 or 8 bolts and you cant get to 2 of them without pulling the motor. They are behind the exhaust pipes. I wanted to fix it right. Here is my thread

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11646

weather · **Posted:** Fri Jun 12, 2015 9:45 pm

Does your water pump run intermittently even when you aren't using any taps? Could be a fresh water leak as well. I had this last year when the over temp valve failed on the hot water tank, took a while to find as the drain hose from the valve dumps under the engine.

nhuyck · **Joined:** Sun Jun 07, 2015 9:41 am **Posts:** 6

Update: It turns out the bearings/seals on my sea water pump were bad. It would only leak intermittently, so the two times I checked it, it wasn't leaking. Then the other day, I started bilging every 10 minutes while the STB engine was running. Opened the engine hatch and noticed water running out from behind impeller housing. New sea water pump and problem solved. Was only out of the water for a day

LouC · **Posted:** Thu Jul 09, 2015 3:43 pm

Great nice to hear of a simple solution for once.

www.iFourWinns.com

298 slowly taking on water

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