mercury outdrive problem

1989 thompson daytona 27' with twin 4 cylanders... 180's i believe.. one of my outdrives is making a lound noise.. i believe it needs some gear repair.. i was thinking about getting it repaired however it seems you can get a lot of stuff on ebay and I can probably buy a used one for about 500 bucks. would i be better off doing that or just getting the drive I have repaired. also I know this is a merc set up however I am not sure which used drives would work for me being a 4cylander would a lot of horsepower.. thanks

Re: mercury outdrive problem

You need to be a little more specific as to what drives you have.

You also need to be sure the noise is coming from the drive itself - for instance, maybe the gimbal bearing is making noise instead.

Re: mercury outdrive problem

I agree with FM, you need to identify the noise before you go buying stuff. I was thinkiong Gimble bearing or U-joints. Pull the drive and inspect it.

Re: mercury outdrive problem

Ujoints can make a lot of noise.I know for a fact you can buy used drives for that motor set up anywhere.Many of those motors fail and are not replaced with the same size motor so the drives are then sold.Charlie

Re: mercury outdrive problem

sorry about the late response. ok I pulled the drive off.. first thing is the oil is clean and when I pulled the top of the drive off to look at the gears it looked good. My thought was gimble bearing as well however. 1. i thoght the gimble bearing gets worse as you turn the wheel. this seemed to stay constant. 2. i stuck my hand and spun the bearing pretty easily. usually when a bearing goes bad it would be difficult to spin or at least make some noise no?? my next idea was just pull the drive off the right motor which I know is good and see if it makes noise on the left side. if it does then it has to be gimble bearing or u joint right? if not I know its somewhere in the drive. on a seperate not my motors run excellent however the gas mileage on the boat is horrible. you would think for 4 cylanders running at 2700 rpms it should be a lot better. for a two barrel carb its rediculas. I have a 25 foot larson with a 350 omc stringer drive that uses about 1/4 of the gas the thompson uses and its only 2 feet shorter.. (the thompson is 2 feet wider as well).. thanks for the help