1958 Evinrude Sportwin Driveshaft Bushing Wear

[Mruiloba]

Can hitting a two inch limb in the water break a pinion gear? Now that I think about it, I did hit a pretty good sized limb at full throttle. I wonder if that is what did it. By the way, I had no symptoms of a broke gear. I was changing the lower unit oil just to make sure it was staying clean and to verify it was sealed when a small metal piece fell out of the drain.

 

[F_R]

If hitting a limb would break it, there would be broken gears all over the place. People grind up rocks and stuff every day.

 

[racerone]

Any pictures of the bushing area of the gearcase ?----Did you use " mechanics blue " to check meshing of the gears ?

 

[Mruiloba]

Ok, thanks. I didn't think a limb could do something like that but I wasn't sure.

I didn't check meshing. I didn't see anyway gear lash could be adjusted so I didn't check. I'll get some pictures of the driveshaft bushing when I get home from work this evening.

 

[Mruiloba]

 

[Mruiloba]

 

[Mruiloba]

I checked the gear mesh with Prussian Blue and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. I turned the driveshaft by hand with the prop shaft and gear set sitting on top of the lower unit upside down. No bright thin spots or anything like that.

 

[racerone]

That bushing it the housing does not look that good to me !!

 

[Mruiloba]

Well heck. It looked better than my old one so I assumed it was ok. I'll try to find another housing and driveshaft since everything else is ok. The oil that came out was clean. No water or dirt, only chunks of pinion gear. Thanks for looking at it.

 

[Mruiloba]

Is there a spec on the side to side play I can compare mine too? It feels pretty tight in there but I can borrow a dial indicator from work and check to see what the reading actually is.

 

[racerone]

Picture of the driveshaft above the pinion ?

 

[Mruiloba]

The shaft that I installed a few weeks ago is the closest one with gear installed.

 

[Mruiloba]

This is the old driveshaft that was in the original lower unit

 

[Mruiloba]

I remember when I put the lower unit on the outboard i had trouble getting the gearcase to mate up to the exhaust housing even after greasing the driveshaft and water tube. I used the four bolts to kind of pull them together. I wonder if the pinion gear was sort of jammed against the forward and reverse gears because of that and maybe that is what caused the pinion failure. Is that possible or not very likely?

 

[racerone]

You should never have to use the bolts to " pull them together "------- I would say something is wrong.----I am not there to do a full inspection !

 

[Mruiloba]

I bet the end of the driveshaft needs a little cleaning up, it looked like someone tapped on it with a hammer at some point. I'll look a little closer when I reassemble it and I'll leave the skeg off until I have the gearcase installed. If it chews this gear up, I'll see if a friend at a machine shop can install an oversized bushing in the gearcase and turn down the old driveshaft a tad to match it.

 

[racerone]

You need to know the correct position of the hole.--------Otherwise gears will not mesh properly and the motor will come to a ---" dynamic halt " again !!!

 

[Mruiloba]

Are you talking about if I take my old gearcase to a machine shop?

 

[racerone]

This is simple stuff that appears to be getting complicated.-----Good luck with this lower unit issue.---Sorry.

 

[Mruiloba]

I apologize for making things complicated. I have worked on side by sides, atvs, 7,042 cubic inch natural gas engines, lawn equipment and cars but I have never seen something that seems so finicky as this lower unit. It has very little, if any, play in the driveshaft bushing which is why I am having a hard time understanding how the pinion could fail and not show any signs or symptoms of failure, no noise, nothing. It was working fine. The only reason I found it failed was when I drained the lower unit oil and a tooth fell out. I appreciate everyone's advice. I'll try to figure it out and hopefully get it fixed.