Bellows won't stay on

I have a Mercuriser 1A outdrive from 1965. Recently I replaced the gimbal bearing, shift cable bellows., Exhaust bellows, and the drive shaft bellows.

I used the parts from an online source. My son bought them for me as a gift.
I preloaded the gimbal bearing with Marine bearing grease before installing it.


The exhaust and shift cable bellows stay on fine but the drive shaft bellows keeps pulling off. I even let the bellows adhesive set up for 2 days before tightening the clamps. And it still pulled off when I raised the bell housing to check. My drive does not have the groove to hold the newer style bellows.

I had cleaned the mounting surfaces and the bellows inside mounting surfaces with acetone before applying the bellows adhesive. This bellows does go all the way on the full length of the mounting lip on the bellows and hits the cast stop on the drive.

The local boating shop is closed for the holiday and will open Tuesday.

I am beginning to think that the replacement drive shaft bellows is old stock and to stiff to flex. I know there is a spring in it but will this make it to stiff to stretch by hand?

Should a new bellows be soft enough to stretch by hand before installation? I can not do that with the replacement drive bellows. The other two were easy to stretch.

The price from web site he used, was about the cost for all the bellows, gaskets, "O" rings, and gimbal bearing then they sell a bearing alone for around here. That is why I am suspecting old stock.

Re: Bellows won't stay on

just a few of my shade tree comments.

I used the parts from an online source.

Click to expand...

i assume not oem parts. may be your only option as i'll assume the oem part is nla. aftermarket parts are copies of oem parts. they may be sub standard. since oem parts maybe nla, i've no answer for using the proper part

Should a new bellows be soft enough to stretch by hand before installation? I can not do that with the replacement drive bellows. The other two were easy to stretch.

Click to expand...

fwiw. new oem bellows are pretty stiff. at least mine were for my mc-1 dirve. they were hard to stretch too.

I had cleaned the mounting surfaces and the bellows inside mounting surfaces with acetone before applying the bellows adhesive.

Click to expand...

did you get all the old glue off? i believe i used a combo of worn emery cloth + acetone, repeatedly, to get the old glue off mine. took some elbow grease and time to get all the old removed even then.

best i can do for you.. good luck with it.

Re: Bellows won't stay on

The grounding clips are your friend here. I modified mine to provide grip between the casting and the boot. Worked great!! No adhesive needed. Using tin snips, slit the flat side of the clip in the center. Then bend one side up, and one down. Make the bend about 1/2 of the flat side length, the shorter the better to allow the bends to be directly under the hose clamp. Place the clip on 'upside-down', newly bent section on the inside and crimp the clip onto the boot so that it will not fall off during installation. If all goes well, you will have a boot that will not fall off during installation, or during use. My exhaust boot is still holding great using this method.





Brandon

Re: Bellows won't stay on

I would say Brandon has a great idea!

Re: Bellows won't stay on

second that!

Re: Bellows won't stay on

That's a great idea to modify the clips. Next time I do a bellows, I'll put three modified clips equally spaced on each end.

My problem seems to be the bellows adhesive. I just bought it a few days ago, but it must be old stock.

I had some Plumbing Goop and put that on last night. I let it cure over night. Just checked. I can't pull the bellows off even with the clamps loose. Tightened the clamps and nothing shifted.

Since Plumbing Goop is waterproof and flexible, I'll run it this way and see what happens during the season.


The parts are Sierra. Thanks for all the replies.