Well, after 3 seasons of zero issues/mishaps with our boat, we unfortunatley had are first incident this evening. While in the middle of the lake (100ft offshore from either side) we came across an unmarked rock bar. Unfortunately our boat does not have a depth finder so we were taken by surprise. Regardless, this high section was right in the middle of the lake, 10' left or right we would have been fine, so even with a depth finder we could have found ourselves in the same position. My husband cut the throttle & turned the key as soon as we found out we were in shallow water, but it was too late to save the prop. We could easily assess that the prop was damaged & lower skeg was damaged but we were not sure about internal damage. We walked the boat to deeper water (literally only had to move it 10' to be in deep water) & decided to start it and put it in gear. It went into gear fine & operated 'ok'... what I mean by ok is there was vibration (which we expected from the prop damage), but it engaed in gear, moved in forward and reverse with no bad noises. So we decided to limp back to a dock at as slow of a speed as possible to minimize vibration. Our boat has a gear oil alarm, temp guages, etc & we monitered things as we limped back... no high temps reached (only have engine temp, not leg temp, but gear oil alarm didnt go off)... No grinding, difficulty going into gear, out of gear, just vibration which we are crossing our fingers was the result of the prop. We didn't exceed 10mph on our way back. Only other issue we noticed is the steering was laboured as we were pulling into dock & loading. Again, no grinding or anything, just felt 'heavy' when the boat was at real low speed (above 5mph felt ok, it was only a real slow speeds it felt like we were steering in a real heavy current - which we attributed to the mangled prop)
The true inspection came once we pulled the boat out of water. Prop, toast as we knew (Aluminum, 4 blade prop). Hull is ok... few minor scratches, but nothing significant. But, the lower leg has a split in it which we didn't know on the water. So, what should we do now? Our drive is a Alpha One, Gen II. No known issues, until now. Is there a chance we can escape with just replacing the housing or should we just bite the bullet & buy a new lower? Or because it is split and water ran though it do we need to look at full uppper & lower replacement? My husband is an auto mechanic, so is capable of swapping the parts. At this point we are really not sure how to access whether or not we have catastrophic internal damage. Since we were able to drive back under low power (didn't try to put high power, due to the prop) with out any bad noises (ie. bad bearing, gear grinding, etc) we are crossing our fingers that internally things are ok... most other posts I've come across from people running aground, the boats won't engage afterwards. My husband has pulled the lower before to replace the impeller (as preventative maintenance), so he'll do that tomorrow evening. And at that time he'll get everything in the upper & lower sprayed down so we don't have a corrostion issue from water. If the splines on the main drive shaft are chewed, that should be obvious, but I'm not really sure how else we should assess things. Obviously we want to spend as little as possible, so if we can get away with housing replacement, great (luckily we have the stock prop which can be put on for the time being)... but if there is internal damage my limited research shows that the $$ creeps up real quick if you start chasing gears, bearings, etc so full replacment can be the better route.
Any advice on where to start? If we pull it apart are there any any tests, checks we can do on the internals to help us figure out if we have a bigger problem than just the housing?
Thanks in advance.
The true inspection came once we pulled the boat out of water. Prop, toast as we knew (Aluminum, 4 blade prop). Hull is ok... few minor scratches, but nothing significant. But, the lower leg has a split in it which we didn't know on the water. So, what should we do now? Our drive is a Alpha One, Gen II. No known issues, until now. Is there a chance we can escape with just replacing the housing or should we just bite the bullet & buy a new lower? Or because it is split and water ran though it do we need to look at full uppper & lower replacement? My husband is an auto mechanic, so is capable of swapping the parts. At this point we are really not sure how to access whether or not we have catastrophic internal damage. Since we were able to drive back under low power (didn't try to put high power, due to the prop) with out any bad noises (ie. bad bearing, gear grinding, etc) we are crossing our fingers that internally things are ok... most other posts I've come across from people running aground, the boats won't engage afterwards. My husband has pulled the lower before to replace the impeller (as preventative maintenance), so he'll do that tomorrow evening. And at that time he'll get everything in the upper & lower sprayed down so we don't have a corrostion issue from water. If the splines on the main drive shaft are chewed, that should be obvious, but I'm not really sure how else we should assess things. Obviously we want to spend as little as possible, so if we can get away with housing replacement, great (luckily we have the stock prop which can be put on for the time being)... but if there is internal damage my limited research shows that the $$ creeps up real quick if you start chasing gears, bearings, etc so full replacment can be the better route.
Any advice on where to start? If we pull it apart are there any any tests, checks we can do on the internals to help us figure out if we have a bigger problem than just the housing?
Thanks in advance.
