Which is bad...Upper or Lower unit?

[ColaTM]

- On the lake traveling along at full throttle and outdrive seizes.

- Removed outdrive, engine turns over fine.

- Separated upper and lower units and see no visible signs of metal shavings and teeth look good in both.

- Lower unit: Prop will turn in both directions moving the vertical shaft.

Does this point to the upper unit being bad?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Bt Doctur]

Re: Which is bad...Upper or Lower unit?

Usually. If you can tell us what type of drive we could answer a lot better.

 

[ColaTM]

Re: Which is bad...Upper or Lower unit?

Duh, that might be helpful. Sorry.

1988 OMC 3.0L w/OMC Cobra Outdrive.

Thanks!

 

[a70eliminator]

Re: Which is bad...Upper or Lower unit?

doesn't sound like the lower is seized, can you spin the input shaft on the upper?

 

[Don S]

Re: Which is bad...Upper or Lower unit?

- On the lake traveling along at full throttle and outdrive seizes.

Did you try to turn the ujoint shaft of the upper, and the vertical shaft of the lower? Something has to NOT TURN to be seized.

 

[HT32BSX115]

Re: Which is bad...Upper or Lower unit?

- On the lake traveling along at full throttle and outdrive seizes.

You might reveal what happened that leads you to believe that the outdrive "seized"

 

[ColaTM]

Re: Which is bad...Upper or Lower unit?

Just confirmed that the upper unit will not turn at all. I guess that means it's the upper. I just really don't know anything about this so don't trust my own common sense.

Thanks for the help.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Which is bad...Upper or Lower unit?

You should probably reference your original post

http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=323373
Title says Mercruiser but turns out its a Cobra.

you stated:

1) You filled the Cobra drive from the bottom
2) Oil leaked out as you were putting the plug back in.

In other words, the drive was only partially filled. Points to upper gears that did not get enough oil to me.

 

[ColaTM]

Re: Which is bad...Upper or Lower unit?

Yep. That's what I figured.

Thanks.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Which is bad...Upper or Lower unit?

I thought you already found a guy to fix this?

 

[ColaTM]

Re: Which is bad...Upper or Lower unit?

Yeah, me too!

I took it to him and he siad he couldn't get parts. Hell I've found all the parts for this drive all over the place but he's a real nice old fart who doesn't use the Internet so if he can't get it from one local distributor he doesn't fool with it and won't use my parts. I figure he's just so busy right now he didn't want to mess with it.

 

[HT32BSX115]

Re: Which is bad...Upper or Lower unit?

Ok...

Well, I think we have the full picture of what happened.

You filled the drive (like a Mercruiser). It subsequently trapped a bubble and then uncovered the upper gears and/or bearings and they ran dry. They seized and destroyed the drive.

You can: Completely rebuild the drive, replace the drive, or, pull the gimbal, and find yourself an Alpha gimbal and get an SEI drive. (btw, a "dealer" did exactly the same thing to my previous King Cobra. They replaced it with no "Lawyering-up")

I would do the latter.


Cheers,


Rick