ATF Leak!!!

[wallacmc]

Fellas,

Below is my post in the Tranny??? thread. What's happening is a horrible sound amplified by a horrible feeling and loss of power in the hole shot. The direct cause is low ATF. I suspect the proximate (underlying) cause to be a leak. Thanks for you advice, experience, and suggestions.

The same thing has happened to miy boat this year, but I'm worried that the problem is simply that the ATF was way low. I was about to start a thread about this when I saw this one. My dealer told me that he didn't mess with the ATF the two times he serviced my boat since I bought it from him brand new. About a month ago, this problme presented itself and he diagnosed it finally as being low on ATF. Once it was filled to the top of the stick, it felt like a new boat. However, it is impossible that I've been low on fluid the whole time. This issue did not even start to present itself until about 150 hrs and I totally lost the hole shot altogehter at 160. So, either my drive train started to use fluid or leaking fluid from I'm guessing around 140-160. I filled it up and took it back out, ran it pretty hard, and found red in bilge, so I'm pretty sure a leak has sprung somewhere. Has anyone had this situation before? I have a 2010 RZ2 with the 5.7L. Anyone know where a good place to look for the leak is? My dealer never sold much volume and he has never run into this situation. He had to take it on the lake just to diagnose the low ATF. Then, we he initially called PCM they started giving him this "driver needs to check fluid before every start BS" when simple logic and a view at the facts say that this problem is a new one caused by a leak. Of course, PCM says this is unheard of. What do you guys think? I defer to the experts...

[Ewok]

There could always be a leak somewhere. You could clean off the tranny and fill with fresh fluid, run the boat with the cover off the engine and see if you can find the leak yourself. If you can;t find it that way, use ultraviolet dye in the tranny oil and special glasses to see where the leak is on the tranny case.

[dom w. forte]

The nice thing is you can pull the floor up and while somebody is driveing the boat look for a leak, you should be able to see all around the unit for a drip.

[geek]

I have a Z1, different boat, but same engine. I am going to assume you have the same tranny.

I had a low atf problem when I first took it out this year. (I bought the boat over the winter). When I investigated it, there was ATF in the bilge and the ATF was not even filled enough to hit the dipstick.

After hours of searching, I finally found a "plug" that had worked loose and actually fallen out. I will try to find a picture of it. Basically, I couldn't find the original plug, so I ended up having to match the thread and pitch, and loctited the damn thing in there.

Moral of the story, check the tranny for a missing plug. I talked to a tige dealer after this happened and he told me he had seen several boats with the same problem.