Gimble bearing

[cfelton]

I pulled my outdrive the other day just to check my alignment and found my gimble bearing getting rough. Its only 3 years old but it had a little water in the boot around the drive shaft. the seal was torn a little so thats probably where my leak was. I ordered a new gimble bearing and seal from Ebasicpower in Harkers Island N.C. and got it the next day! They're really cheap and deliver fast. I guess if it stops raining today sometime I'll try to put it back together. Before I left my last job I had one of our machinist turn me out an alignment tool out of some cold roll stock. It was free and works great!

[spareparts]

if you are talking about the seal in front of the gimbal bearing, the only way for water to come in from there is if you had high water inside the boat. Check your bellows real good and check the shift shaft seal(under the shift arm) in the bellhousing. Make sure your gasket surface is good when you put it back togerth and make sure hte big oring for the water pasage is in good condition and sitting on a good surface.

[cfelton]

Yep Spare, I noticed when I pulled the outdrive the big O ring (about 3in) that goes on the end of the housing around the driveshaft, was torn. I must have torn it the last time I had it out. Ill try and be a little more careful puting it back together this time. The rubber was gone in the seal behind the gimble bearing, but theres never been any water in the bilge so it could'nt have gotten through there.The bellows are almost new and I've looked over everything else and it looks fine. I didnt get to today, but im gonna put it back in tomorrow. Thanks Spare!!

[cfelton]

I got chance to work on my V yesterday. I made a seal driver out of a piece of 2in pvc pipe and a pvc coupling and drove the seal in first. Then I slid the alignment tool into the coupling on the flywheel and slid the new gimble bearing down the tool till it bumped the housing. After I lined the grease hole in the bearing with the hole in the housing, I took the pvc driver and tapped the bearing right straight in till it bottomed out. It worked great! I used the new gaskets and O rings and slid the outdrive right in. Everything went really smooth. After greasing everything up, I put the trim cylinders back on and put the muffs on and fired it up. It ran slick as a whistle. I'm ready for the water!