This was supposed to be all one post, but I hit enter at the wrong time.
The was going so fast I decided to start the disassembly of the gimbal housing. First thing I found was a broke part on my port trim sender.
I looked at some used ones and they run about $50 but I found a new set on Amazon Prime for $65 so thats a no brainer. I had actually considered replacing them anyway so what the heck. I popped the hinge pins out and yes they were pretty tight so I had to get a cheater pipe on my 1/2" drive ratchet, but that was enough encouragement. I broke everything loose from the bell housing without much trouble. The retainer ring for the u-joint bellow was the only other thing that needed a little encouragement. After you get the bell housing out of the way it's pretty much picking which clamp you can reach the easiest. I ended up having all of the bellows and hoses out within an hour or so. Everything had went good up until I started removing the lower shift cable. I made a removal tool out of an extra 9/16" socket we had. I set the tool on the brass nut that threads into the bell housing and it would just turn. I ended up having to cut the cable, then use a dremel tool to cut the upper portion down so my extractor would get in there. This worked pretty well, but I did try a few other methods before finding one that worked. Here's a couple of pictures of the culprit.
With all the clutter out I figured I might as well double check the gimbal bearing and sure enough it was froze up. I'm guessing between the hole in the bellow, the ding where I hit the seal on the last install, and no alignment last time, I wasn't surprised. I had only had the boat less that a year so I was completely green on the whole subject. Luckily the kit I ordered had the bearing, I was just planning on saving it if I didn't need it. The bearing came out super easy and the seal is still in great shape so I won't be replacing it this time. So at this point, this is where I am.
You can see from this picture that the grease told the tell of water being around the bearing and the ding I put in the seal.
Tomorrow I am going to start putting some of the parts back in but I don't want to get too far ahead since I need to order the senders. It can be done with everything in, but I would much rather have the extra room to route the wires. I still have a few other things that I can do in the mean time so at least I can still make some progress. If anything interesting happens, I'll try to give an update.
