OMC Cobra drive maintenance

[Tex Pat]

1993 OMC Cobra 5.0 Four Winns Deck Boat
400 hours on engine/drive; Lubed regulary Never any problems or water intrusion.

I've never had this drive apart, it's all original: ujoints, shafts, gimbal etc. Beginning this year the mechanic suggested replacing the bellows and now I am thinking of having it done. Is it necessary or appropirate to replace a lot of those moving parts? What should I do to maintain a reliable unit?

 

[HT32BSX115]

Re: OMC Cobra drive maintenance

If you're saying that you have never looked at the U-joints, and replaced the bellows etc....Now is the time to do it!

It's not good if that thing starts leaking..

U-joints are fairly inexpensive. If there is any questions about them they're not hard to replace. He'll also check the gimbal bearing and the alignment too since it'll all be apart.

 

[Tex Pat]

Re: OMC Cobra drive maintenance

I have had the u-joints lubed over the years (about every other year) and the lower unit oil changed, impeller changed too. 1 prop re-seal just last year. The mechanic was quoting about $1200 to replace ujoints, gimbal bearing, exhaust and drive bellows, impeller and lube. Do I need to do all that? Or more?

 

[HT32BSX115]

Re: OMC Cobra drive maintenance

Someone else will have to jump in here on the price to do all that stuff.

Doing those things are about a 4 hr job I think and $1200 might be somewhere in the ball park. There are several people here who do this stuff for a living and they can tell you how long it takes them.

I would allow a whole day to do all that stuff and it would probably take me a weekend since I move pretty slow. A lot of dealers charge about $75-95/hr so if it it took them 5 or 6 hrs to do the job that knocks out more than half of what you're talking about. The transom kit for my Cobra cost me a little over $100(eBasic Power) with the shipping. That didn't include the raw water pump kit which was about $70 at NAPA.

Seems U-joints were about $35 each at NAPA the last time I checked.
With the engine oil change, fuel and oil filters & drive oil at $12/qt you have close to $300 in just parts alone.


Depending on where you are you might want him to winterize it too. (which doesn't include a lot of additional labor)


That's about all I can think of with my limited experience!




Regards,


Rick