Saving Old Seagulls

Hi, I'm new to the forum but have been running a Segull Forty for a couple of years on my mirror dinghy. Last week I noticed that there was no cooling water coming out of the telltale and had to row most of the way home! I don't know how long the motor was running without cooling water being pumped around the internals but it was working properly for the greater part of the trip. I didn't have time to sort out the blockage until today and the motor stayed in the sailing club boathouse until this morning when I removed it and saw that a quantity of mysterious oil had been seeping out of the exhaust (?) tube....




Hopefully, it's just unburned two-stroke oil that wasn't flushed out because the cooling system was obstructed, but I'm slightly concerned. Can anyone suggest or clarify the exact nature of the problem?

BTW, I flushed the obstruction out of the cooling system with a garden hose as suggested on this site and, yes, you do get very wet! My Seagull is now expelling water as it should be in the flushing tank but I want to make sure that the seeping oil is not a problem before I return her to the back of my boat.

Cheers, Richard.

Rest assured it is not a problem. It is perfectly normal seagull behaviour to leak unburnt oil and messy oil /water emulsion in this way........which is why owners will put a drip tray underneath a motor after use. Surprised you haven't seen it before!

Peter

Cheers for the info 40TPI, I feel a bit less concerned now. I guess I've never seen that stuff before because I'm generally pretty good at flushing the outboard in clean fresh water after use. This gunk materialised after one of the occasions when I didn't flush it and after a longer than usual steam up the river.

Flushing has no impact on this. The cooling water system is totally separate; in this instance it is most likely the length of the motor running time.

Peter