Milky oil in driveshaft bellows

I was gong to change my impeller, pump housing and gimbal bearing today on my MC-1 and discovered milky oil in the driveshaft bellows. The gear oil in the outdrive is clean.

I've serviced the outdrive from my Alpha 1 and Alpha 1 Gen 2 and haven't seen this before.

There is no oil coming through the gimbal bearing, just the oil that was trapped in the bellows.

Anyone know the cause of this? This is a "new to me" boat so Im not sure what the PO may have done.

Thanks in advance!

Re: Milky oil in driveshaft bellows

seal leak in the drive. looks like you need to reseal the drive.

if the bellows starts to leak, it lets water in. the water rusts the u-joints and shafts which eats up the seal. then the seal leaks. and you get the mess you found

Re: Milky oil in driveshaft bellows

Me again. Wonder if the upper seals could be leaking some???

Re: Milky oil in driveshaft bellows

Did you happen to measure the amount of oil you drained from the O/D? (or, did you happen to check the level of oil in the O/D before you drained it? Might give a good clue). What did your U-joints look like? Milkyness would indicate possible water intrusion along with the drive oil. May be looking at a bellows issue (maybe a very small leak). Otherwise, the water could have entered via the drive-to-bell housing seal. How did that one look? Either way, sounds like multiple issues. Best of luck. When you look at the drive yoke seal, pay close attention to the yoke shaft area where the seal seats. Maybe issues there, too.

Re: Milky oil in driveshaft bellows

Thanks guys.
My U-joints are bad. I'm gonna order all the gaskets and reseal the drive.

I didn't measure the amount of oil in the drive. When I was pulling the drive the milky oil came out and I was shocked because I had checked the outdrive oil when I got the boat and it was fine as well as the oil level. I thought maybe the drive had leaked on the couple of boat rides I took.

The U-joints dont look rusty yet so I assume this is recent(or just enough oil to prevent rust)
The drive to bell housing seal looked fine.

Oh......there was about 5 oz of milky oil in the bellows. The PO said he had replaced the all the bellows but I'm gonna replace them anyway.

Unrelated question:
I've seen posts where questions were answered with the quote feature. The highlighted question quoted with the answer below. Can someone please explain how to do that? Can I quote from mutiple posts in the thread too?

Thanks again y'all!

Re: Milky oil in driveshaft bellows

NOLA-boy said:

The drive to bell housing seal looked fine.

Click to expand...

You say the drive to bell housing seal looked fine, but the video showed a seal that was broken (very end of the video) being placed abck on the drive. When did that happen? That would let water in.

Re: Milky oil in driveshaft bellows

I guess the video was misleading. The seal was intact when I pulled the drive. I pulled on the seal and it ripped. Maybe the seal wasn't good after all. Dry rotted?
I'm going to replace everything anyway. I'm gonna pressure test the drive too.
Thanks!!!!