Re: Dumb friend bad ball gears OMC
It is not too complicated to change these. You do however have to remove the out drive. First things first and the funest part of the project is removing the shift cable. You will need to release the tension off the shift cable at the shift box and remove the cable from the shift box. All you do is push the cable into the box and slide a cotter pin or small nail through the sleeve on the box to hold it, then remove the cover and undue the cables from the pulley and arm. Before you do this, take the batteries out of the boat. You ground out the cable its done! Getting it through the intermediate housing can be a nightmare. Spray some WD-40 around where it exits the intermediate housing. You will have to push and pull (after removing the little bolt and retainer) to get it to come out. Once that is removed, take the black bumpers off the upper and remove the trunnion/pivot bolts. There are 4 (2 each side), remove the trunnion caps first (one on each side with 4 small bolts holding them on each side). You will need a new seal kit here (about 3-4 bucks on internet). After that, the drive will slide right off the intermediate. Have a friend (the guy that screwed it up) you lift it out of the way. There are four small bolts that hold the bearing retainer on the intermediate behind the ball gear and four that hold the retainer on the upper unit behind the ball gear. Remove all bolts and pry the retainer off with screw driver. Careful not to trash the shim as you will be reusing it. The shaft will slide right out and its off to the work bench. Now remove the dome cap to get to the nut holding the ball gear to the shaft. Drill a small hole in the center and pry it out. Don't be surprised if you see that the nut and shaft are good and rusted. Use penetrating oil and let it soak. You will more than likely need an impact wrench to knock it loose. I broke 2 vices and had to put a 3 ft pipe on a breaker bar to get this loose. My impact wrench didn't put a dent in it. I also had to heat the hell out of it. A propane torch will work and they sell them at any local hardware store. Since you're going to all the trouble I would put new seals in. The ball gear kits come with them but will not have the far inner intermediate seals. They may be fine but mine weren't and gear lube was getting into my bilge, you will have to buy these separate if you choose to replace them. I paid $12 each for them at a local marina. There are two and they go in back to back. You can get the old seals out with a screwdriver but I used a cheapo bearing puller from Harbor Freight. All seals go in back to back and you want to put a sealer around the outside case before you pound them in. Coat them nicely with OMC triple guard grease (the rubber in the center). Also, use some on the o-rings too on the bearing retainers so they slide right in. The kit will come with new caps for the ball gear nut; you want to put plenty of silicone here (fill the cavity) to keep water out. Also, you want to use red loc-tite on the ball gear threads and ball gear spines. Reverse the process to reassemble. Labor for the general at home mechanic is all day and probably at least a 12 pack of brew.
Since you will have the drive off, now is a good time to put in a new impeller. Its not too difficult. Get this done and I will tell how to do the impeller and go into detail on putting the shift cables back into the box. You want to use some sealer on the shift cable where it enters the intermediate. This all sounds like a lot of work, I was very leery about doing all of this. Really, it was not that hard. I would suggest getting a manual too. Listen, I'm no mechanic, I'm a chiropractor and if I can do this, you can too.
