General question about Volvo outdrives

[GMTK]

After I pulled my sterndrive to replace the bellows (first time I had ever done this) - it got me to thinking - can water get in to the u-joint bellows while the boat is in the water? There is no gasket that holds the stern drive to the pivot joint; just the 6 bolts and then an o-ring around the water tube. Is the metal on metal enough to keep the water out? I did put some of the volvo grease around the stern drive near the u-joints, the 6 bolts were torqued, but just seems that would be impossible to keep water out of the u-joint bellow and corresponding gimbal bearing. Looking to the experts here for their thoughts.

 

[Bondo]

Ayuh,.... Which Volvo drive,..??

They've built many different drives over the years,....

 

[Horigan]

I had the same question the first time I pulled off my SX drive. The aft end of the bellows forms a seal against the circular bearing carrier on the drive when it's bolted onto the pivot housing.

 

[GMTK]

Sorry Bondo - 2004 SX-M drive.

 

[BRICH1260]

The main thing to remember is to place the belled bellows end inside the drive shaft hole on the pivot housing. The tapered nose of the upper outdrive will press into the rubber bellows tube and expand it against the pivot housing sealing the drive shaft.

 

[Lou C]

And just to be on the safe side, coat the bearing retainer nose and the corresponding surface of the bellows with Evinrude triple guard grease. This will help it make a 100% water proof seal. This is recommended in the OMC shop manual and the Volvo SX design of the transom mount and bellows was simply an adaptation of the OMC Cobra design. In fact, the bellows on both was the same part #.

 

[GMTK]

Thanks Lou. The volvo manual called for a light coat of the volvo grease on the tapered end of pinion bearing carrier and I did that.

I guess I will know this fall when I pull it off if I did a good job or not....