1989 Force 125 serial # unreadable

[Glenn Iverson]

My 1989 Arriva 200 with 89 Force 125 is in the cottage garage for the winter. Am about to drain the lower end oil & replace but noticed when the trim was lowered so the skeg was on the floor some water came out of the propeller anode area. Poured some gear oil into the fill & vent plug at the top and a small amount of greenish oil also leaked out after the water was finished. Looks like some seals are in order. I was thinking of swapping out my 1:73 lower end anyway for an 85hp 2:1 lower end so this is as good of time as any. Need to measure to see if it is a 20 or 25 shaft. I have no serial # for this motor as it is rubbed off beyond recognition. It is a single exhaust lower end. Is this an issue when it comes to sourcing out a 2:1 lower end? Would a 1989-90 Force 120 dual exhaust be compatable also?

 

[pnwboat]

Best thing to do is to pressure test the lower unit, however, if you see gear oil leaking from the anode area, then I would suspect a bad seal. A 1989 125HP 20" lower unit (single piece drive shaft) has a drive shaft length of 21 1/2" measured from the top of the water pump housing to the end of the drive shaft.

An 85HP 1988 -1989 or there abouts lower unit will work just fine. Some of the later model dual exhaust two piece lower units will work too.

I've played around with some of the two piece drive shaft dual exhaust units on my 1988 125HP motor and have had to modify the drive shaft housing to get them to fit. The water pump on the dual exhaust units that I tested with were different and it interfered with a casting in the drive shaft housing. Had to take a hack saw and a cut away part of the casting to get it to fit. Everything else bolted up fine. I have no idea what year the lower units were. Had to re-adjust the shift linkage too. Anyways, once I got everything adjusted it worked great....or at least I thought so. My motor would not get above 90?F water temperature and the water pressure gauge would peg at 40+lbs at WOT. Tried everything to get it to run hotter. Nothing worked. Put a 1988-1989 2:1 85HP lower unit on and it ran at 130?F like it always has (130?F thermostat), so I've left it that way for the time being.