1985 mercury black max 200hp lower leg is frozen up

[ijill55]

we just bought a boat with a mercury black max 200hp we changed the impella in this motor and when we went to put the leg back on it wouldnt go back in. At that time my husband tried to turn the shaft to adjust it and it wouldnt move so he pulled the plug and noticed that some water came out followed by lube so we know that there has to be a bad seal and one of the options is to rebuild the lower leg I was wondering if anyone had any other ideas on what we can do to free this us before going to the extreme of having it rebuilt

[CaptainHook]

Are you sure it is frozen? It will be hard to turn the drive shaft by hand with a good new impeller! Is the lower unit in neutral? If it is in neutral and you can't spin the prop then there is a problem. But if the prop spins in neutral you may be ok.

Try and take the pump housing off and then spin it.....

[ijill55]

the lower unit is off the boat the prop does spin by hand but the shaft will not so we cant even get it back into the motor

[CaptainHook]

I would try to spin it without the water pump. If it still doesn't spin then, well.....you got a problem.