Strike Two

When I got home Friday evening, there was a small puddle of gear oil under the drive. I called Jack and told him the Saturday launch was off.

After a lot of searching, and getting pretty good at taking the lower unit off and putting it back on, I found the leak. It was coming out around the shift shaft, right past the oil seal. This was the area where all that crud buildup was when I first opened the drive up. There's a special tool for removing the bushing that holds the shift shaft seal and of course, I didn't have it. I made a tool out of some steel bar stock that I happened to have and removed the seal. I thought about removing the shaft to make sure it was ok, but I wasn't sure if I could take it out without turning this into a much larger job. The shaft goes down to a crank at the front end of the propeller shaft and if that crank came loose down in there when I pulled the shaft out, I'd have to take the whole thing apart to get to it. The shaft looked ok, as nearly as I could tell. It was just a little discolored at the top.

I put in a new seal and did an air pressure test to check for leaks. Professional outdrive repair shops have a fitting with a gauge on it that they can attach to a drive to see if it holds air pressure. I had an automotive pressure/vacuum gauge, some rubber tubing, and a cone shaped rubber fitting that I jammed into the oil fill hole to pump in air with a tire pump. It held pressure. If it hadn't held air, that wouldn't really have meant anything because the leak could have been in my test setup as easily as in the drive. I refilled the drive with expensive oil once again, test ran it, and called Jack.

Next: Success

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