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C-Drive Wearing Bushing and Bow Thruster seal premature failure
Mohammad Shirloo
In doing the normal engine room inspection before every departure, I saw the top half of the C-Drive oil container was creamy colored indicating water intrusion. I also noticed that the oil had overflowed the container and had poured on top of the raw water filter cover. Our last sail was a motor sail of about 9 hours at 1500-1700 RPMs. At pre-departure inspection, this condition did not exist. SO it would have happened some time during the last 9 hours of engine use.
I also found out that the bow thruster oil had completely drained during the 3 months that the boat was in the water from August to November 2016. I filled the bow thruster oil and had not leaked out again, but bow thruster use was minimal and was down for only about 15 minutes.
Both items were serviced in May 2015. The engine has about 350 hours since the time of service and the bow thruster gets used rarely, since we anchor most of the time. My question is if this is if others have seen this timeline of failure, is it normal or poor workmanship that would lead to this type of early failure, despite the recommended 800 hours and 2 years by Amel?
We are hauling out tomorrow to make repairs, even though our scheduled haul out would have been around May 2017. I want to be sure that the work id done corrfectly so that we get the expected life pof the parts. My understanding was that the 2 years is a conservative and convenient way of doing the replacements during the application of the anti-fouling.
Any thoughts and recommendations would be appreciated.
Mohammad and Aty
B&B Kokomo
Amel 54 #099