Water in the oil of my v-drive

[shake-n-bake]

I have an 07 24ve with almost 600 hours on it. Other than the problems we had with the engine when it was new it has been a great boat. We have had so much fun on the boat. The other day my wife and I were cruising along the lake when we started to smell something burning. We heard no buzzers or warnings. We stopped and started checking everything and determined that there wasn't really any fluid in the v-drive. I put more ATF into the v-drive and then started the boat back up and tried to drive it. the boat has a little shimmy when trying to get going. I checked the oil on the v-drive and the oil is all gone and milky residue left behind and the water in the bilge is all milky with oil.

Am I going to have to rebuild the whole thing, or part of it? Any information about v-drives and what could all be wrong with it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[Thegerman618]

just to clarify, is it the velvet drive transmission or the V-drive if you put ATF in the V-drive that's a NO-NO its supposed to be straight 30W non-detergent. Either way water in the trans or V-drive usually means bad/cracked transcooler. Depends on how long you ran it with no oil will depend on the rebuild. If I am not mistaken it doesn't take long to super heat those bearing and they get a what called blueing and will need to be replaced. You also said there was a fluid in the bilge meaning its leaking from somewhere, were you able to locate the leak?

[shake-n-bake]

It has stamped tags on the v-drive that say to use ATF only. I wasn't able to locate the leak. Other than it didn't take long for the oil that i put into it to be pushed out and from the looks of it a lot of it ended up in the bottom of the boat. So it could be pushing it out a crack or out the bearing? My guess from the way it felt when I put it in drive that it got the bearing hot.

[skivt]

I just had to replace my transmission cooler.....It was cracked and leaking water. two hoses go into it from transmission(Vdrive) and if not tight or hose is cracked could be leaking V drive transmission oil ....just a idea...I have a 2005 24V. its located on the port side of the engine....way down low

[boatwakes]

Sounds like the zf unit, the cooler is integral to the v drive housing. Most likely will need to replace the whole unit. Do you run in salt? Very uncommon for this problem in fresh water.