30 hp Honda outboard

I have a 2002 30 hp Honda outboard. I'm getting a few drops of water on the spark plug on the #2 cylinder. I'm also getting some water in my oil. I suspect a blown head gasket or a cracked block. Has anyone experienced this problem. The last time I run the motor it started intermittenly skipping from 3 to 2 cylind1ers.

If it was allowed to get hot, head gasket is the likely culprit. If operated in salt water it could be a combination of things - including a bad head gasket.

I'd pull the head for a look see...

I agree with pulling the head. It sounds like you caught this early and, since you've identified the cylinder it should be easy to see/diagnose what happened.

Here's hoping a fresh head gasket will get you fixed up.

Good luck.

I would do a leak down test on the cylinders, then you will know exactly if the head gasket let loose...

I service a fleet of these BF30's most have over 4000 hrs and are tortured by the sailing instructors all summer long.... Never saw a head gasket failure to date.

Well then, you're in for an experience when you see one aren't you!

It's not just the gasket that can fail. A "salty" will often corrode where the gasket needs to seal around the cylinder OD. This can happen on the block side, or the head side, and it's NOT that unusual, especially for high time engines run in salt water.

So if you want to split hairs, technically it may not actually be a gasket failure, but instead be a head or block failure. The bigger point though, is you aren't going to see it until you pull the head!

There's also the potential for an engine to really get cooked. Maybe to the point the plastic valve cover melts. Something like this can make the gasket brittle, and even if all seems OK after replacing the reason it was cooked, it can fail in the next few hours of operation.

This I NOT something you're going to see in a well maintained fleet of motors, as anyone worth their paycheck is going to eliminate at least most of the potential for one of these to overheat, right?

On top of the potential for engines having issues in the gasket area, there's also potential for them to corrode to the point where (salt) water is allowed to get into many other areas of the engine, and many/most will be visible with the removal of the head....

Point being, if you've never seen any of this in your fleet, stick around a while longer.... I can assure you it DOES happen!

-Al
Just a shade tree mechanic.....

Again, leak down the engine.

Maybe I can learn something here. A positive test would clearly identify an issue. Not much imagination required there. Just for grins, lets say the leak down showed nothing unusual. Now what? What's your next step in identifying where that water is coming from? What exactly would YOU do?