AVickers
06-10-2001, 06:03 PM
I splashed the boat yesterday and it was great to be out.
Had a drive failure last year that I didn't discover until I was setting the boat up for use this spring. Drained the oil only to find the case was filled mostly with water. Teardown revealed two bad seals. One (on the input shaft) looked like it had a slot cut in the lip -- about 3/8" along the circumference. The other -- on the prop shaft -- was installed facing the wrong way 'round and I think it allowed the water in. My guess it that the slot in the upper allowed the water to displace the oil up and out. The bellows were full.
I checked the oil level several times over the course of the season and it was always topped up. Little did I know it was slowly being displaced by water.
Frankly, I'm amazed I didn't totally crater the drive, 'cause I hammered it over the cours of last summer.
We'll see how it eventually works out. The gear faces in the upper housing were pitted somewhat and all the bearings were filthy and discolored -- no rust or pitting. I cleaned everything up and got it to where the bearings were smooth again. There was no cleaning the gear faces -- beyond removing the rust. I put her all back together and will hold my breath. I ran her hard all weekend and there was no overheating of the drive and no excess noise. (Alphas are supposed to whine somewhat, right? At least mine did last year...)
I'm going to pull the top cover and inspect things sometime this week. Hope it all looks fine.
Had a drive failure last year that I didn't discover until I was setting the boat up for use this spring. Drained the oil only to find the case was filled mostly with water. Teardown revealed two bad seals. One (on the input shaft) looked like it had a slot cut in the lip -- about 3/8" along the circumference. The other -- on the prop shaft -- was installed facing the wrong way 'round and I think it allowed the water in. My guess it that the slot in the upper allowed the water to displace the oil up and out. The bellows were full.
I checked the oil level several times over the course of the season and it was always topped up. Little did I know it was slowly being displaced by water.
Frankly, I'm amazed I didn't totally crater the drive, 'cause I hammered it over the cours of last summer.
We'll see how it eventually works out. The gear faces in the upper housing were pitted somewhat and all the bearings were filthy and discolored -- no rust or pitting. I cleaned everything up and got it to where the bearings were smooth again. There was no cleaning the gear faces -- beyond removing the rust. I put her all back together and will hold my breath. I ran her hard all weekend and there was no overheating of the drive and no excess noise. (Alphas are supposed to whine somewhat, right? At least mine did last year...)
I'm going to pull the top cover and inspect things sometime this week. Hope it all looks fine.