I Made A Big Mistake!!

I just performed a waterpump replacement and installed new fuel lines on my 1982 Larson 140 Merc and 1R sterndrive. I havent had a chance to take to the lake so I have ran it twice in the last two weeks with the muffs on in my driveway. Everything runs great and it shifts good but this is what I did wrong:

I have been running it with the drive in its full up trailer position. I have let it idle and even reved it to 2500 and got it to operating temp. I have run it for about 10 minutes each time. I even shifted it but didnt rev it. The unit has 378 hours on it. Did I screw up the u-joints? Should I just plan on replacing them now? Whats the sign of them bad, is it clunking noises like a car? I did all this work and now I think I messed something up although there is no sign of it that I can hear or see. Any thoughts??

Re: I Made A Big Mistake!!

I would suggest you pull the drive and check. What happens is the ujoints breaks the transom shield right where the bellows attaches.

Re: I Made A Big Mistake!!

You mean the transom shield itself breaks or the u-joint? When I did the waterpump I only pulled the lower unit off. Pulling the whole drive scares me.
What would be some symptoms if something broke?

Re: I Made A Big Mistake!!

CLUNK,BANG,RATTLE,
Oh Sh#@

Re: I Made A Big Mistake!!

I've had a few hit it just enough to break it, and not make a lot of noise. But it wouldn't keep water out of the gimbal bearing, ujoints, and the drive, and also leaked into the boat.
To look, you just pull the outdrive off the bellhousing.
Put it in FORWARD GEAR, remove the aft trim cylinder pin and remove 6 nuts. Then just slide it off.
Pulling the outdrive is a yearly maintenance item, then you inspect the gimbal bearing and lube, lube the ujoints and check and most of all, check the alignment. YEARLY !!!!
Then a new $8 gasket kit to put the drive back on.
I have to assume you haven't got an OEM service manual. You really need one if you plan on keeping up your engine and drive.

Re: I Made A Big Mistake!!

Thanks for all your help. I have the Seloc manual at home and I will remove the drive this week and have a peek. Hopefully nothing will be broken and I will lube it align it and put it back together.

Re: I Made A Big Mistake!!

Seloc or Clymers will make life miserable; you need factory.

Re: I Made A Big Mistake!!

Definitely get the OEM merc manual, #6 before you start. Look it over before starting so you are more comfortable.
Good Luck!

Re: I Made A Big Mistake!!

Can You expect the same damage on a Alpha 1 gen 2 if you - by mistake - start the engine with the drive in full up position?

I have done it 2-3 times by mistake - when I started the engine up in water - i imidiately lower the drive - and at my yearly inspections (where I always remove drive - grease -check alignment etc.) i have newer noticed any damage at all

Re: I Made A Big Mistake!!

While it is not a great idea to do what he mentions, I have done it a few times over 15 years with no harm.

1) when I was a newbie, I serviced the boat on the trailer with muffs with the drive up. Oops. Many many times

2) every once and a while I get into someplace shallow and I am forced to idle out with the drive up high.

My understanding is that I am simply accelerating the wear on certain components....certainly nothing has broken....yet

Re: I Made A Big Mistake!!

enn858 said:

Can You expect the same damage on a Alpha 1 gen 2 if you - by mistake - start the engine with the drive in full up position?

I have done it 2-3 times by mistake - when I started the engine up in water - i imidiately lower the drive - and at my yearly inspections (where I always remove drive - grease -check alignment etc.) i have newer noticed any damage at all

Click to expand...

There is no way to say one way or the other. Does the engine run up to high idle and settle back? That would be as bad as throttling up. How many times? How long? Who knows. For the original poster I think he's stressed them pretty good. He needs to pull the drive and give a good inspection to the transom shield and ujoints (Don you missed that one! )

Starting with the drive up is bad period, and the problem is you now have to live with worry until you inspect the ujoints and housing. At idle you can get away with it trimmed high as if you were in shallow water, but in trailer position they were never designed to take the stress.

Lets put it this way. It's bad for the ujoints to just SIT in the trailer position! If one of those lets go at speed it can take out the housing and you will sink. That sounds extreme, but that is what can happen.

For me a drive pull is just a few minutes. We have ALL made this mistake. I simply pull the drive and inspect everything before I go out again. As Don said you need to learn to take it off and perform annual maint anyhow. Now is the time to start.

M

Re: I Made A Big Mistake!!

This is a sort of a maybe/maybe not. I had a 1966 Mark Twain 18' with a 150 Mercruiser #1 drive on it.

Dad bought it new. (I remember the day we picked it up) We ran that thing with the drive everywhere from all the way down to all the way up for it's whole life (IDLE ONLY) and nothing ever hit or broke. I sold the boat in 2005.......lessee.....1966-2005.....That's 39 years by my calculation.

I AM NOT SUGGESTING ANY ONE DO THIS! (We didn't know) The #1 drive did not have power trim. Only power tilt. The book only said not to exceed idle RPM when above "all-the-way-in" (or all the way down)......(although it may have said it....I don't remember it saying not to start it when the drive was all the way up.....)

My dad used to troll in idle with the drive almost all the way up because it was a little fast all the way down. He would adjust it from full up to a little lower depending on how fast he wanted to troll...... We also ran it almost all the way up in very shallow water to keep from hitting something while idling around.


I don't think I'd do the same with my Bravo...


Cheers,


Rick