Outboard Power Tilt Question

[C08]

My 2011 Tohatsu 20 Hp has been great and has only done about 600 hours on a sailing catamaran and is just out of warranty. For a vatiety of reasons I have not used the boat for 18 months but managed to get away last week and the engine and power tilt was fine however I got a trailing rope bow mooring line around the prop that was attached to the bows and stopped the engine lifting as well as stopping the engine dead . It was because it would not lift I realised there was a boat line holding it down.Anyway I tried a few times to raise the engine and after I had cleared the prop fortunately without prop damage I noticed that there was a fine film of fluid on the top of where piston exits the hydraulic cylinder. I cleaned this fluid off off and used the engine for the rest of the week without any problems and no trace of any further fluid leaking.
My question is whether trying to use the the power tilt when it was held down could have caused a temporary blow of fluid past the seal and now that all is free this was a one off or whether I should be concerned that the seal is failing.

 

[jfm]

My 2011 Tohatsu 20 Hp has been great and has only done about 600 hours on a sailing catamaran and is just out of warranty. For a vatiety of reasons I have not used the boat for 18 months but managed to get away last week and the engine and power tilt was fine however I got a trailing rope bow mooring line around the prop that was attached to the bows and stopped the engine lifting as well as stopping the engine dead . It was because it would not lift I realised there was a boat line holding it down.Anyway I tried a few times to raise the engine and after I had cleared the prop fortunately without prop damage I noticed that there was a fine film of fluid on the top of where piston exits the hydraulic cylinder. I cleaned this fluid off off and used the engine for the rest of the week without any problems and no trace of any further fluid leaking.
My question is whether trying to use the the power tilt when it was held down could have caused a temporary blow of fluid past the seal and now that all is free this was a one off or whether I should be concerned that the seal is failing.

in general I wd be worried about a seal failure. Most hydraulics have a pressure relief valve that lets go before anything else (whether a seal or mechanical part)

 

[simonfraser]

Keep an eye on the fluid level.
Are the rams clean, that’s more likely to give you seal probs.