5.8L OMC Cobra, Mid 90s, outdrive issues. Prop shaft bent, is upper good?

[jkaczman]

Hi all,

I have a boat with a mid 90s 5.8L OMC Cobra engine and outdrive on it. I hit some rocks this weekend, and bent up the prop.

I replaced the prop, and inspected it. The outdrive appeared to be good, and ran fine for nearly a 2 hour trip. On the way home, the prop shaft let go.

I had my marina inspect it, and they don't do alot with OMC's. They put it up on dry dock, drained the fluid and saw some metal shavings in it. Im assuming when the prop got bent it bent the whole shaft, and as I used it, it got progressively worse.

The marina is asking if there is a way to inspect the upper, to see if I can just swap the lower unit. Boy are these things expensive. Any suggestions from anyone on this forum? Thanks in advance!

 

[Sparkinator]

Which drive do you have. In the mid 90's, OMC had a joint venture with Volvo and they designed the Cobra SX drives (bottom pic and has a hump on top of drive) Up until then, OMC had the Cobra (top pic and flat on top) that was a completely different drive. You can just replace the lower unit, but you and your shop need to know which one you have. If you have the SX, I'd take it to a Volvo Penta repair shop, because it's the same drive as the Volvo.

For future reference, I bent my prop shaft on my SX a few years ago. I took it to the shop and they straightened it for about 150 bucks (if I remember correctly). The SX drive is heavy enough that they could straighten the prop shaft while still in the drive. They didn't have to pull anything.