1986 150 yamaha water in my lower unit

[sven]

Is there any way to inspect the shift shaft without pulling apart the whole motor?

[Monkey Butler]

Originally Posted by sven

Is there any way to inspect the shift shaft without pulling apart the whole motor?

Look at the forward edge of the midsection just below where the lower pivot connects.



You can just catch a glimpse of the shaft. It is as thin as a pencil to start and you won't really be able to tell what sort of shape it is in from wat you can see but hopefully what you will see is tat it has been replaced at some point and is now nice shiny stainless steel. You could test the strength of the shaft by removing te lower unit and then holding the top of the shaft (right under te block) while at the same time having someone insert a suitable tool into the bottom of the shaft in order to apply torque to see if it is solid. Be aware that this may ultimately turn into a destructive test if the shaft is on its last legs. Here is a link to my old thread about my shaft replacement that shows some photos of the process and a picture of the shaft itself on the last page:

LINK

[phatdaddy]

can you get to it with a magnet, that'll tell you if its stainless or not..

[Monkey Butler]

Here is what the shaft looks like:




It rots mostly at the very bottom which is not visible with the motor together:



Im not sure but the coupler at the bottom may be SS even on the steel shafts.

[sven]

I took the LU off today and got a glimpse of the shaft and it was unfortunatly corroded. It feels like it still has some meat on it (at least thats what I'm hoping). I'd say if the shaft is around 7 millimeters diameter, the thin section due to corrosion (that I can see) is maybe 5 mm. So I'm going to pressure test it, re-seal (maybe I get lucky and its simply the crappy looking washers on the vent and drain plugs....make it nice and easy), throw it back together and run it. No funds at the moment to look for a new (used) motor. I'm just hoping it will last one more season and I can swap it out in the fall.

Anything I can do to stretch the life of the corroeded shaft for a couple of months? I guess I could throw some grease to help slow the exisiting corrosion for a while. Take it easy on shifting is another I guess. Anything else? Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks for everyones advice!

[macojoe]

Really not much can be done. When mine started to go it was not shifting right, I had to adjust the cable to make up for the twist, after 2 adjustments the shaft broke.

[Monkey Butler]

Nope, I don't think that there is anything that you can do to protect the shaft from further corrosion. Too much of it is just too inaccessible to do anthing to it.

I have done a jury rig repair to a broken shaft that is still going strong after two years, but it can only be done after the shaft has broken.

[bksah2]

Hey monkey I would love to here about the jury rig repair can you tell more about what you did ....I did some searching and found a few guys that retrofit the shaft with some sort of coupling