Volvo Penta SX grease tube fix alternative.

[Matt9712]

As most people know the grease tube on these outdrives is a pretty poor design. My gimbal bearing failed after one season due to the tube falling out somewhere and allowed water in the bearing .... what a headache. Well as always its just about time to boat in water and low and behold my gimbal, bellows project took a turn because of this tube. Nobody has them in stock locally and a week out and $35 for tube and $9 for grease fitting. Don't have time figured try to make something a little better. So here we go in case anyone else runs into this...

What you need:
Jb Weld marine weld $12
1 foot of 3/8 tubing $ 0.79
1/8 45 degree grease fitting $1.89
1/4" x 1/4" barbed adapter BHB-197NLB $5
1/4" X 1/8" bushing BF-738NLB $5



I cut about 4 1/4" piece if tubing shaved down one end and roughed it up. So it would fit snug into gimbal bearing housing

Put some JB weld on it carefully not to get into tube or on inside of bearing race. Let set for hour.... perfect time for a beer or 6....

On the other end I stuck barbed fitting on tube, threaded in bushing and grease fitting using Teflon.

Seems to work great and hopefully will last a long time. Will update this later after it gets in the water. Hindsight I wish I made tube just a little bit longer to put hose clamp on barb fitting area.

I read the thread about tapping the housing which I had no luck as couldn't get the tap in straight with hydraulic lines in the way. But that is also a great fix if you have the room.

To save anyone time if you want to stick to OEM stuff. The original part# for tube is 3852564 and grease fitting for it is 3852121.

 

[Matt9712]

As most people know the grease tube on these outdrives is a pretty poor design. My gimbal bearing failed after one season due to the tube falling out somewhere and allowed water in the bearing .... what a headache. Well as always its just about time to boat in water and low and behold my gimbal, bellows project took a turn because of this tube. Nobody has them in stock locally and a week out and $35 for tube and $9 for grease fitting. Don't have time figured try to make something a little better. So here we go in case anyone else runs into this...

What you need:
Jb Weld marine weld $12
1 foot of 3/8 tubing $ 0.79
1/8 45 degree grease fitting $1.89
1/4" x 1/4" barbed adapter BHB-197NLB $5
1/4" X 1/8" bushing BF-738NLB $5
View attachment 380133


I cut about 4 1/4" piece if tubing shaved down one end and roughed it up. So it would fit snug into gimbal bearing housing

Put some JB weld on it carefully not to get into tube or on inside of bearing race. Let set for hour.... perfect time for a beer or 6....
View attachment 380135
On the other end I stuck barbed fitting on tube, threaded in bushing and grease fitting using Teflon.
View attachment 380134
Seems to work great and hopefully will last a long time. Will update this later after it gets in the water. Hindsight I wish I made tube just a little bit longer to put hose clamp on barb fitting area.

I read the thread about tapping the housing which I had no luck as couldn't get the tap in straight with hydraulic lines in the way. But that is also a great fix if you have the room.

To save anyone time if you want to stick to OEM stuff. The original part# for tube is 3852564 and grease fitting for it is 3852121.

Gonna piggy back off this one. When reinstalling new bellows I found out that the retainer that clips to the inside of the exhaust bellows was MIA and new kit didn't supply one.. Volvo Penta part #3852665. They range around $30 and as you can guess probably none available locally and it's memorial day so everything is closed anyways. But if you have pretty bad luck as I do with boats... here is my fix you can do with what you already have.

I took the old drive shaft bellows and cut off a piece of the metal that spirals through it.


I then bent a loop around the cut end to mimic the factory bent one. Filed the edge of the cut edge to make sure no sharp edges and it was flat (as in bent end didn't go off to one side and end up poking through bellows) I then bent in it in my best effort to keep it as close to circular shape as I could. Ended up with roughly 3.5 in bend as shown.


Used some needlenose pliers and got it to snap in to the groove inside bellows. Seems to have pretty good tension and holding good.


As always probably better ways to do these things as in buying the correct part. But when you procrastinate working on the boat until the weather warms up like myself, time is not on your side and valuable lake time is at stake. Onto to the next surprise issue for now.

 

[baker556]

Nice write up, I think I have the same issue.

 

[Matt9712]

Nice write up, I think I have the same issue.

Thanks. I hope it helps