Seal inside the shift cable sleeve on a penta 280?-gctid360402

[Guest]

I an reinstalling 2 280 legs and have a question about the sealing - or lack thereof - inside the shift cable sleeve. The parts guide just calls it 'a hose'. It is the hose / rubber sleeve screwed into the transom shield that the transmission shift cable feeds through from inside the boat to the leg.

I have 3 different ones to look at, and of the 3 there was 1 (only) with a rubber seal inside the sleeve at the transom shield end. Not sure if this is something the previous owner did or not. Also not sure why they would be missing from the other 2.

I cannot see anything listed in he parts guide.

What I cannot understand is if there is no seal at the bottom, then the only things to stop water coming into the boat are (a) the cap at the top of the hose, which does not seem substantial enough (b) simply having the inboard end of the sleeve and cable routed to above the waterline, I guess the latter would work but does not seem a very robust solution.

I don't want to do something like just bung in some sikaflex as I believe the shift cable has to move a bit when the leg is raised and lowered.

Anybody have any comments? I don't want to sink the boat!

Thanks in advance!

[2850Bounty]

Yep... these are wet area shift cables at/near the drive. Very common and standard for the AQ series drives.

The hose is actually a sheath or conduit for the 33C style cable.

Do not tie the sheath and cable together... it needs to slide within the sheath as the drive turns Port/Stbd.

The inboard side of the sheath is to be fixed at a higher elevation than what the water level could ever reach.

Works well, and the only issues are these:

• Sheath is not fastened up high enough to prevent incoming water.
• Lower-most fitting "crimp sleeve" has become corroded..... and you do not want a leak here.

DO NOT attempt to remove the fitting from the transom shield.

I can almost guarantee you that you'd have trouble, and end up breaking something.

The fix for a corroded crimp sleeve is to remove the sleeve (cut it off with a sharp chisel), shorten the hose by 1 in, replace and use a Euro style band clamp in place of the OEM crimp sleeve.

NOTE: the Euro band clamp ID contour must be correct for the hose OD.

[Guest]

I just did this retrofit to my shift cable assembly. I removed the hose and purchased a replacement. I pushed the hose over the previously crimped section and used a euro-style clamp to fasten it. I gave the hose some extra length to make sure it is well above the water line. The unit hasn't been installed on my boat yet; but when it is, I'm going to zip tie the cable to make sure the end of the sleeve STAYS ABOVE THE WATERLINE.

Thanks to Rick for his advice on this. I did start to play around with the cable assembly to remove it (prior to talking to Rick), and it seemed impossible to remove without breaking something.

[Guest]

That is correct. Having the hose end well secured above the water line is all that is done. The cable needs to move as the drive turns. Mine runs up high right under the rail and I've never had any water come out of it.

There is a little rubber boot you can install on the high end if it makes you feel better, but it doesn't do much in my opinion.