Alpha One, Gen Two water pump kit question

Delmagtech

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Hi guys. Ive got a Gen 2 Alpha one disassembled and ready for a new water pump. I bought the complete kit from the local marina. It's Mercury part number 817275K05. The instructions in the kit say its for Alpha and Vaser Drives.

I've searched everywhere, and in the process watched the two videos Chris did, which were great, btw.

Anyway, here's my confusion:

When I disassembled, there was a paper gasket above and below the lower plate portion of the pump.

The repair kit I bought has two of these lower plates. One naked plate, like the one I removed. The 'gasket' they sent to put underneath of that plate is steel rather than paper. Then there's a paper gasket to seal the upper and lower portions together.

However, they also supplied a lower plate (might be called a face seal) that has been overmolded with rubber. Looks like a superior piece to me. I'd prefer to use it, but I can't find it mentioned anywhere. I can't imagine why it wouldn't be just fine to use, but then, why would merc even supply the others?

Is anyone familiar with the part I'm speaking of? Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
 

Delmagtech

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CE246631-93B5-4FE6-ACA9-D0170D7E985A.jpg
 

JASinIL2006

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I believe the one-piece plate with the integrated rubber gasket replaces the others (which were a pain to get correctly lined up during installation, from what I've read). My kit had only the plate with the integrated seal. I don't recall any other plate and separate gaskets. (Maybe those are if you have an 'R' drive and not a Gen 2)
 

Rick Stephens

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Nice part is, if you use one or the other you can inspect the impeller in a couple years and have spare gaskets.
 

keith2k455

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I just did my impeller and went through the same knowledge capture you are. I believe the three piece actually replaced the over molded piece, but either way only one is required. Choose either the molded piece or the three piece setup, but not both. You are lucky, two gasket sets in one!
 

Delmagtech

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Thanks for the input, Fellas. I got it back together with the rubberized piece last night..
 

Challenger84

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I just did this over the weekend.
I also bought a kit that ncluded more than 2 gaskets..
I onlyused the ones that matched what was taken off..
the extra gaskets i have no idea what they are for... Maybe a different drive? and they sell the kit for multiple applications?

My 2 cents is to replace the exact ones you removed.....
 

MarkSee

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Is anyone familiar with the part I'm speaking of? Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

That is indeed the newer part/kit for the a1g2 and for those of us that are not skilled mechanics, that 1 piece unit along with the guide pins (or proper sized bolts with the heads cut off) makes installation so much easier and virtually impossible not to get a good seal while not needing to worry about the 3 separate pieces shifting on you.

Mark
 

Delmagtech

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Well, I did something wrong. Everything went together just fine. The directions in the kit told me to torque the the 4 housing bolts to 60 inch pounds. I did that, but it sure seemed excessive to me. The drive is now making a whirring / whining noise that's quite irritating. Obviously, I'm going to take it back apart, but I'm unsure of what to do differently. Hopefully something will be obvious.
 

Rick Stephens

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Well, I did something wrong. Everything went together just fine. The directions in the kit told me to torque the the 4 housing bolts to 60 inch pounds. I did that, but it sure seemed excessive to me. The drive is now making a whirring / whining noise that's quite irritating. Obviously, I'm going to take it back apart, but I'm unsure of what to do differently. Hopefully something will be obvious.

60 inch pounds = 5 foot pounds - if you used a regular torque wrench you can't accurately do as little as 5 foot pounds.

Did you mistakenly convert that to 60 foot pounds? I would take 60 inch pounds and just convert to "wrist pounds" and give it a little snugging and call it good.

Rick
 

nickmo

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I wouldn't think those bolts could take 60 foot pounds. They would snap.
 

Delmagtech

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Good thoughts, guys. I'm an equipment technician, and I have several torque wrenches. The one I used was a Craftsman clicker, 3/8" drive that does measure in inch pounds. I didn't mean that the 60 inch pounds felt like too much for the bolt to handle, or I'd have just stopped. I had watched some videos before doing this, and someone warned that over-tightening these bolts could cause pump failure quickly. Normally I'd have just snugged them up, but the warning caused me follow the directions that came with the kit.

The reason it felt excessive is because it drew the housing down tighter than I would have otherwise. Said another way, I bet if I were to tighten it even more, it wouldn't reduce the room for the impeller in there; 60 inch pounds pretty much drew everything down as far as it can go.

I have the matching larger 1/2" drive clicker wrench, and while I've not doubted its accuracy, I think it's a POS. Now I'm wondering if that little wrench is inaccurate. I'm going to follow your advice of just snugging them down with 'wrist' pounds and put it back together.

I'm fairly certain its the pump causing the noise. I did have the entire drive off of the boat though (as opposed to just dropping the lower). At an idle, with muffs on the trailer, you can't really hear it, but if I bump it up a couple hundred rpms it gets much louder. The boat owner told me she though the noise was only evident while in forward or reverse, but I think it's because it's not evident at an idle. I can certainly hear it in neutral, but only if a rev it slightly.
 

Rick Stephens

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I'm fairly certain its the pump causing the noise. I did have the entire drive off of the boat though (as opposed to just dropping the lower). At an idle, with muffs on the trailer, you can't really hear it, but if I bump it up a couple hundred rpms it gets much louder. The boat owner told me she though the noise was only evident while in forward or reverse, but I think it's because it's not evident at an idle. I can certainly hear it in neutral, but only if a rev it slightly.

Thanks for taking my question so well. Sorry for doubting - I can just see it happening. 60 Ft lbs would break those bolts. So I shoulda known.

If you run the boat on muffs, can you use a stick or an stethoscope and isolate the sound location? I'd be worried about a whine, but I don't know how a new water pump can whine.. Gear box, yes. Maybe even the bearing just under the pump. But the pump seems unlikely.

RIck
 

Delmagtech

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I would have thought the same, Rick, if the tables were turned. I agree that it seems unlikely that the pump could be doing this. However, it didn't make the noise before I opened it. Seems too coincidental for a bearing to make the noise unless I somehow disturbed something by taking it apart. I'm quite concerned I'm going to take it down and put it back only to hear it again, but there's not much else I can do.

This was supposed to be a favor for a good friend that couldn't tell me if she'd ever had that pump replaced before. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished! Good call on the stethoscope. I do have one. I'll try it to see if the sound seems from the top, middle or bottom.
 

Rick Stephens

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Best of luck, brother. If nothing else I'll be wanting to hear what you find.

And if it weren't for good deeds, we might as well live alone and pound sand for fun. Cost of doing business, as you well know. In the end, it'll be fixed, she won't really know how you agonized, and we'll all learn something.

Rick
 

keith2k455

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Interesting, but a few questions come to mind:

Did you rotate the impeller (I don't remember CW or CCW) the correct direction when installing (the flaps spinning with vs. against water)
When aligning the shaft, could something have happened?
Did you get the oil o-ring installed when putting the two halves together?
Did you fill the lube completely from the bottom drain hole?

Good luck. I agree with finding the whine before something gets torn up and fails on the water
 

Delmagtech

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Hi Keith. I'm sorry for the delayed response after everyone's help. The boat took a backseat to some work stuff in the last week and a half. To answer your questions, I think I am on top of every good point your brought up. I made sure the impeller direction was correct, I did change the o-ring between the upper and lower, and I did refill it properly from the bottom. I wasn't sure when I read your post if some sort of alignment issue could have been the problem.

So, tonight, I finally found some time to mess with it. I put it back on the garden hose, and bumped it up to about 1100 rpms so I could hear the noise. Then I got out a stethoscope and poked around. In some ways, you hear TOO much with those things, but at the end of my checking, I decided I could only hear the offending noise when I probed near the large lower bellow. No noise from the upper or lower section of the drive, nor water pump areas of the drive.

So, I changed plans. Instead of separating the upper and lower again, I went ahead and just pulled the complete drive. Sure enough, I stuck my hand up in the large bellow, and the gimbal bearing is absolute toast. I can turn it about 1/8th of a turn by hand, and its gritty. No water in the bellow, but quite a bit of grease.

So then I opened the hatch, and it looks like there's supposed the be rubber bushings at the rear motor mounts, and they're gone, as in, no rubber at all there.

So my uneducated diagnosis is that it needs new rear motor mounts, a new gimbal bearing, and a motor alignment before the drive is reinstalled.

I don't have a 3 jaw puller to get that bearing out, nor do I have any type of driver to reinstall it. And I don't have an alignment shaft to line it all up after new mounts are installed, so I'm probably going to tell her she's going to have to find someone or a shop better equipped to take care of that. Were it mine, I'd go ahead and install new universal joints too, but hers don't necessarily feel bad. I hate that I cant finish it for her as a favor... but between you and me, I did find some relief that I didn't find that I made a mistake :)

I can't tell you why this symptom showed up at the same time I disassembled it for a new water pump, but one thing interesting that I found when I first disassembled it, is that the input shaft, that slides through the gimbal bearing is supposed to have two smaller O-rings on it towards the rear, and one larger closer to the spline end. The larger one was there upon disassembly, but the rearmost pair of o-rings weren't there at all. Maybe that shaft was spinning in the bearing before I touched it; I'm not sure.

Ps.- Rick, thanks for the words; we're on the same page...
 

Rick Stephens

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Good news, of a sorts. The motor mounts may not be an issue. You can't actually see rubber. There is a leather pad between motor side and transom side. And the motor side has internal bushings that can be replaced. The bolt has a fairly tight wound spring under the head. No rubber can be seen.

Gimbal doesn't take much tooling, but without any it is a reach. You are correct - puller, drive and alignment bar. Many alignment bars come as a kit with the driver.

Best on your next project.

Rick
 

keith2k455

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Jul 23, 2012
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Yeah, sorry for the news, but it's better to find it now and let her get it replaced than to have a failure on the water and maybe feel guilty about it.
 
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