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Lower Unit Bearing Carrier Removal

troym

Advanced Contributor
"Found the oil leak!
Replaced


"Found the oil leak!
Replaced the impeller, changed the oil, etc.
Ran it for retest, everything works great.
Came home from work today and noticed a spot of oil right beneath the skeg. Traced it back and it looks like it's coming out of the oil seals around the prop shaft. Pulled the prop off and confirmed.
Two questions:
1) Do I really need the special tool ($65) to remove the bearing carrier retainer or has someone out there engineered an equivelent with tools found under a typical shade tree.
2) The manual says to remove the water pump first. I don't see the point in that, unless the section I'm looking at is an excerpt from a complete teardwon, especially since I just replaced the impeller and would rather keep the lower unit attached while I replace the prop shaft oil seals. Any comments?"
 
"If you know what the puller l

"If you know what the puller looks like, you should be able to figure out a way to make something that will work. It's a really long version of a pulley puller. Once the seals are replaced, you should do a vacuum and pressure test on the gearcase -upper and lower gear cases both installed in normal positions unless there's an oil bottle on the motor. If it has the bottle, you need to loosen the 6 bolts holding the outdrive onto the gimbal and pull it back about 1/2" so the check valve can close. Otherwise, you'll never hold pressure or vacuum. I use a Mighty Vac with the optional pressure attachment for these tests. The plastic pump won't work for this because they only make the pressure accessory for the metal one. Don't go nuts with pressure or vacuum- you can damage the seals.

If you replace the seals on the carrier and it still won't hold pressure or vacuum, it probably has a bad shift shaft seal. Don't discount the possibility that the seals on the water pump housings are bad, though.

Most oil seal leaks on bearing carriers are from two things- age and fishing line.

YOU NEED TO GO INTO FORWARD TO SLIDE THE OUTDRIVE BACK! FAILURE TO DO THIS CAN DAMAGE THE SHIFT LEVER!!!!"
 
"There is great risk to the pr

"There is great risk to the propshaft and the area the seals need to ride on trying to replace the seals without removing the carrier from the drive. Not to mention the trashing of the carrier bore for the seals. If that area is leaking the other spots mentioned above will be right behind the prop seals, get the entire lower resealed! As well the $65 retainer nut tool is only one of a number of special tools you will need to do it right."
 
"After thinking about it all n

"After thinking about it all night, I'm leaning more towards taking another hard look at the vertical shaft oil seal. If that was leaking, oil would end up in the same place I'm seeing it now via the exhuast passage.
Also, I didn't realize that the prop shaft seal was that visible after taking the prop off. I thought it was farther back inside. It's right in front of me and has no indication of oil leakage. The oil is definately coming out of the exhaust passage.
I started draining it early this morning. I'll let it do that all day until I get home from work, then take the lower unit off. If I see oil in the same places I saw it two weeks ago, I'm going after that vertical shaft seal, then put it back together and see where I'm at."
 
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