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Water in outdrive oil

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Sutton1996

New member
So I have water in my outdrive oil and need to resolve the issue. I did some searches and found lots of tips. This boat is new to me (Had it for almost 1 year) so I'm thinking it would make sense to completely reseal the entire outrive, and do water pump at the same time.

First question is, am I overdoing it?

2nd question is, how difficult a task is this? I built and installed the motor that is in the boat, so I consider myself fairly skilled mechanically. Any special tools required?

third question is, what would a boat shop charge for a service like this? If it was fairly cheap, I might opt to not learn, and just pay to get it done.

Boat is a 1998 Sylvan 19' pleasure boat with a 5.7l and an Alpha 1 outdrive. What else do you need to know?
 
Must be a day type project if thats all you'd charge? If I can find someone around here to do it for that I'll probably just take it in and have it done.
 
It`s very hard to just quote a price because if all you want is a reseal and I find it needs a pump ,thats extra.Or corrosion holding the unit together that takes a bit more time to get it apart. Say a trim tab bolt so far gone the tab needs to be cut off first.Best way is to disassemble it ,inspect all bearings and shafts for any grooves.Sometimes the prop carrier can be a B^%$# to remove and some will actually just break from corrosion.You want it to last so with the correct service interval it last forever. And theres YOUR part too. Checking the oil level , not hitting anything solid , not being a "mud runner" .
 
I understand on the price, ballpark is all I was after. Im hoping this boat will be a best case scenario, though aren't we all!!! LOL

This boat belonged to a friend of a friend. It was bought locally, never moored, never been in salt water, and supposedly only ever run in one lake which is very clean. Makes sense because it is within 15 minutes of his house.

Anyway, thanks for the opinion. It is food for thought.
 
Well, I couldn't stand it. I pulled the outdrive off this afternoon. I need to go to the hardware store and come up with an adapter to attach a pressure gauge and air assembly.

One observation was a pool of drive oil found in the big boot. I don't see why it should be there. But I am wondering if it was there to begin with, of if it pooled there as I was removing the outdrive. It looks like that shouldn't be able to happen.



Q1 is it normal to have oil there?
Q2 Could it have pooled there during removal? Not likely I think
Q3 Where did the oil come from then? Shift shaft seal?
Q4 If so, could water gain entry into oil in the same location?
 
That's what I'm dealing with right now. It's either the oil seal right behind the u-joints that's letting oil into the bellows, or it's the bellows that are leaking.
 
I am pretty sure the seal behind the ujoint is my culprit, at least as far as the oil leaking. It has to be. I just don't see any way it could be from anywhere else. I have the upper disassembled to the point where I need to remove the lower cone in order to replace that seal as well. I need to figure out the best way to get to that particular seal.

My next question is where is the water entering the oil? My boots look good. In fact the oil puddled in the boot has been sitting there for several days and has not leaked a drop out. Could be leaky up higher I guess though.

I tried to pressurize the unit this afternoon. The only leak I could find was at my homemade fitting that connected to the housing. Even at that it held 12 lbs for several minutes.

I think I am going to reseal the entire upper, then reassemble and run it and see what happens.
 
A merc outdrive will produce approx 7-9 psi when running.

When a merc outdrive is pressure checked it should be pressurized to ~ 15 psi, no more than 18.

This should hold solid for 2 minutes NO LEAKS. If your pump system leaks fix it and retry.

Also a pressure check does not always show water intrusion. In some cases you need to pull a vacuum on the unit.
Remember, we who have worked in the field has a lot of special tools that are REQUIRED to fix these.

I have the pump and a vacuum tester just for hard to find leaking seals. If water is getting in, a vacuum test would show this, if oil is getting out a pressure check will show that.


When the ujoint bellows has a lot of gear oil in it, NOT liquified grease!! typically it is the upper carrier seal that has gone bad.
 
I read through the manual a couple times and decided 2 things. First I do not have the proper tools and do not want to buy them. Second I do not really want to learn about preloads and feeler gauges and so on. So I took the wuss route and found a local reputable shop to complete the job. At least I know the condition of the interior of the housing. It was clean with very little or no corrosion.

Thanks for the help guys!!
 
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