Gimbal bearing replacement?-gctid390432

[Guest]

Took my 89' Arriva to the lake for the first ride of the season and was met with a bearing growl when engine is running. Sounds like behind engine- water leaking into boat around driveshaft as well. I am assuming that I got some water into the gimbal bearing and it rusted on me over winter?

Anyone have an idea what this repair would cost at a dealer/boat repair shop? Or has anyone done this themselves? I was an auto tech for nearly 20 years before going into management and forgetting everything. LOL! So, I have enough knowledge to be dangerous...

Thanks!

[Guest]

kevin5218 wrote:
Took my 89' Arriva to the lake for the first ride of the season and was met with a bearing growl when engine is running. Sounds like behind engine- water leaking into boat around driveshaft as well. I am assuming that I got some water into the gimbal bearing and it rusted on me over winter?

Anyone have an idea what this repair would cost at a dealer/boat repair shop? Or has anyone done this themselves? I was an auto tech for nearly 20 years before going into management and forgetting everything. LOL! So, I have enough knowledge to be dangerous...

Thanks!

First thing what outdrive OMC Merc

Second to get water in there the bellows is shot.

Third buy a manual for the drive

You will have to remove the outdrive.

The gimbal and seal pull out with a puller. I use a piece of plywood to keep it centered and a steel bar across the belhousing (over the plywood) and a 3 fingered puller on a piece of drill rod, two washers with grease in-between and a nut. This pulls it out straight. Same with the seal.

Your two crosses will also be shot. They change just like on any drive shaft.

You need tools to install the gimbal and insure the alignment is good.

It is an easy job about 2 hours on a merc and a couple of hundred in parts.

[Guest]

Can be done. I did mine with little problem. You will need to get some tools together and want to change the bellows as that is probably what left water in and thne caused the bearing to fail. If you have any skill, you should be able to do it. Just get a good manual and take your time. There are several good articles on changing all of this out. At a minimum you will need a slide hammer bearing puller and an alignment tool. I was able to locally manufacture the rest of the tools like the bearing insert tool which I think was a 1.5" PVC pipe, etc. To get the new bellows on, just put it in very hot water for a little bit then pull it out and dry it. This makes it much more pliable when re-installing.

I took my boat to have all of this done and it ended up costing me over $4,000.00 as they had to replace the coupler as well. Had a very bad time with the repair shop and ended up having to replace everything a year later as the tech stuck a screwdriver through the bellows when he was installing it. (As a side not, after the bellows was heated I simply used my hand to get it in the little groove on the transom plate.) I did all of this myself and it took me two weekends as I was very thorough when I was cleaning everything.

Also, since you had water intrusion, you will at the very least require new u-joints (some marine folks call them bearing crosses I think) and have to check the outdrive, etc for water intrusion. I was able to buy the u-joints real cheap and have the local machine shop press them in. And yes, as always there was a little trick to pressing them in to "load" them properly.

So you could probably do it, but if you have some extra money, then maybe taking it in is also a good thing. I would just worry as there are probably lots of parts that someone would say needs "replaced" when sometimes you can just clean them up and basically remanufacture them.

Jeff