Seal inside top of drive unit behind swivel shaft?

Wildboating

my understanding is that the seal behind the swivel shaft has failed which is allowing drive fluid into my bilge.  is this true?   What should it cost to replace that seal I'm told the gears have to come out the top of the drive ?

Willhound

Do you mean the drive shaft? If so, no gears to come out, but the drive has to come off, the seal changed and drive back on. Not sure of cost.

rasbury

Hopefully @Alswagg will chime in...I'm guessing there are a couple of seals, perhaps a carrier bearing of sorts but don't think any gears to come out?

reneechris14

 Swivel shaft? Do you mean drive shaft. If the top seal on the out drive goes bad it will come in though the gimbel baring and in to the bilge. Reseal on a out drive would be 700 to 900. I did both drives last year he broke then down checked all bearings and gears and new seals. Charged me 1350 for both have not list a drop of fluid this year. Knock on wood.

reneechris14

If the top seal is leaking there may be a reason.

Wildboating

Yes the drive shaft.  I'm having bellows and seals done now.  But I had oil draining from my reservoir into bilge.  The small seal on the face of the drive is fine.  They are telling me on the other end of the drive shaft, inside the top of the drive there is another seal which failed.  The o rings on the shaft also are almost flush with the drive shaft.  The combo of these allowed all my drive fluid to leak through the bellows and into bilge.   Slowly but surely I'm going to have a brand new boat.  Smh

rasbury

Sounds like a job for the shop....

Wildboating

Thanks Al,  Is $150 for this service when drives are already off fair?   

rasbury

$150 for anything you can fix on a boat is a bargain, and Al sure confirmed this is for someone trained. Even if Al gave you step by step, you can easily overlook something that is wrong and not be aware of it from lack of experience. I would not turn a bolt to open up anything in my lower unit. I might replace risers myself next- plugs and filters etc., some minor electrical stuff but that is my limitations.  

craigswardmtb

I had the same thing happen.  Just it was a minor leak into the bellows.  In the end they replaced the yoke assembly and all seals.  You could see some scoring on the shaft.  Once replaced all was well.  Albeit it was more expensive than i was expecting, but it always is...

davidbrooks

After having a B3 sterndrive professionally rebuilt i can tell you that in some cases there is no replacing training and experience.  I am a fairly competent DIY guy.  But in the case of my drives i would of not have seen the "issues" that the pro saw when he inspected it.  What i learned was that the average life of a drive is about 5-600 hrs.  Then expect to do a full rebuild.  Annual maint for bellows and seals is almost a must do even though some folks get away with not doing it ... and finally experience let someone see where i may have 10-20 more hours before i would of had a failure.  That folks is worth the money.  My advice.. Pay the man.

rasbury

@Davidbrooks you do your bellows and then all the seals in the outdrive each year??

Wildboating

He's being paid....  every **** paycheck I make he gets.  

davidbrooks

@rasbury This is my first year....and ended up replacing both transom assemblies.  So yes i am one for one.  Previous owner claimed he had them done every other year but i am kind of starting to think corners were cut.  Drive seals were leaking, Raw water hoses though the transoms almost closed.  I sent off one drive for a complete rebuild and will likely do the same with the second one this winter. Being able to what it would take to do a bellows job makes me now understand why it is expensive.  It takes time.  But i also really see the importance.  Mercruiser has also changed the design a little of the raw water inlet so it will hopefully get better water flow.  

rasbury

I am finishing up my bellows, 2005 boat and I don't know that they were ever done. I had a carrier bearing in the prop shaft leak and took that somewhere to have fixed. I don't think anyone on this forum is doing bellows every year and if your replacing all the seals in the bravo III each year I would say that is also excessive. If it passes a leak test for all those seals then I would see no reason to replace those on any other schedule- pretty darn expensive as well I'd think!

randy56

@Wildboating Aren't you glad you own a boat! It's fun,  I enjoy it, but dammmmm,
 it 's a great way to get rid of money. Some day I'm going to join MT, 

Wildboating

My last boat in 6 years cost me 2 lost weekends and a coupler. This one is a pita!  But slowly but surely it's going to be brand new!

wm61356

@randy56 - Yeah but if we didn't own boats we would likely waste the money on frivolous things like food, shelter etc. : 

Ian

You al know boat is not a noun but an acronym - Break Out Another Thiusand. 

randy56

need to add (this week).

Wildboating

@Alswagg

they are now telling me the driveshaft needs replaced. It's wore out / scored. What should this cost and where can I get one quick?

rasbury

Thanks Al....that's really cool....i could probably get it apart. It's the inspect part...i use to do drafting, help design tooling, familiar with surface plates, micrometers and such, just don't think I'd know what I was looking at!

craigswardmtb

Bellows every year is a waste of money. Sure you can sink if you get a hole but they are durable. I would think every 3-4 seasons.  I have an uncle that was just aweful with maintenance. He did nothing but change his b3 oil and anodes every season and he is on 20 years.  He just had to replace his transom assembly. The drive is still running strong. I asked him about bellows and he said what's that....

rasbury

Mine on my 05 may have been replaced, the drive came off for a coupler repair so I was not sure if they had been done before or not- the shop said they were fine when I did the coupler do did not replace them at that time. I had a leak start immediately after the repair I've been chasing all year and thought it was the bellows but after replacing, don't think that was my problem but not back in the water yet...I'm actually thinking now it is either from the steering pin seal (not likely hopefully) or where the pickup water hose connects on the transom side- I just think now the water was coming from up higher than the bellows...we will see but point is, the bellows looked find and at the very least, were several years old...