Smokindakine
Recruit
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2017
- Messages
- 1
My 69' sterndrive hooked on to a 160 Mercruiser chevy straight 6 does NOT have a grease fitting on the right side to grease the gimbal bearing and there is no hole for grease to come through where the bearing is seated.
I've been knocking myself out trying to find THE RIGHT (a sealed bearing) replacement bearing on the internet, but 90% of what I find have grease holes in them.
Now that I have the bearing out I notice that it is this type with a grease hole (the original must have been replaced in the late 80s or so with the one I pulled out . I am pretty positive that this was not the original part in 1969, but was replaced with a newer one that was meant to be greased every 50 hours or so.
My question to older guys and retired guys who used to work these, or younger guys who know about them (this was close to the time when they went from sealed gimbals to greasable gimbals) is "Do I really have to find the right sealed bearing or can I just use one of the new greasable types. One of the new greasable types is what I pulled out even though I haven't greased it since I got the boat in 1994 (I didn't even know about gimbal bearings until a couple of years ago). It was installed with the 2 slots on the inside which I've read in the internet is wrong, but wrong only maybe because you can't get the inner bearing out of the outer ring when you can't see the slots when you look in there)(I couldn't see the slots when I looked in there because they were in back),
Do I need to worry about which gimbal I put in if it fits in the seat and fits the driveshaft? This one that I pulled out lasted at least 500 hours without grease and only went bad because the u joint bellows was leaking.
What do you experts suggest. Can I just put an after market Sierra (or something) in there and not worry about grease or should I try to find a sealed bearing that would be closer to the original part. I don't think there's any more originals around. Where can I find an original greasless bearing (sealed) or the correct replacement part (sealed)? I'm asking because once again, the bearing I pulled out is the new style with the grease holes in it, a big hole in the outer ring and a small hole in the inside bearing itself that are supposed to be lined up all three, grease hole in bearing seat, hole in bearing outer ring, and hole in inner bearing race.
Thanks for all the help and I hope I get a lot of responses from you all.
One more quick question. Do ALL aftermarket u joint bellows (and exhaust bellows) have a wire spiral running through them? Mine had a wire spiral that came out while I was working it out of the bell housing.
I've been knocking myself out trying to find THE RIGHT (a sealed bearing) replacement bearing on the internet, but 90% of what I find have grease holes in them.
Now that I have the bearing out I notice that it is this type with a grease hole (the original must have been replaced in the late 80s or so with the one I pulled out . I am pretty positive that this was not the original part in 1969, but was replaced with a newer one that was meant to be greased every 50 hours or so.
My question to older guys and retired guys who used to work these, or younger guys who know about them (this was close to the time when they went from sealed gimbals to greasable gimbals) is "Do I really have to find the right sealed bearing or can I just use one of the new greasable types. One of the new greasable types is what I pulled out even though I haven't greased it since I got the boat in 1994 (I didn't even know about gimbal bearings until a couple of years ago). It was installed with the 2 slots on the inside which I've read in the internet is wrong, but wrong only maybe because you can't get the inner bearing out of the outer ring when you can't see the slots when you look in there)(I couldn't see the slots when I looked in there because they were in back),
Do I need to worry about which gimbal I put in if it fits in the seat and fits the driveshaft? This one that I pulled out lasted at least 500 hours without grease and only went bad because the u joint bellows was leaking.
What do you experts suggest. Can I just put an after market Sierra (or something) in there and not worry about grease or should I try to find a sealed bearing that would be closer to the original part. I don't think there's any more originals around. Where can I find an original greasless bearing (sealed) or the correct replacement part (sealed)? I'm asking because once again, the bearing I pulled out is the new style with the grease holes in it, a big hole in the outer ring and a small hole in the inside bearing itself that are supposed to be lined up all three, grease hole in bearing seat, hole in bearing outer ring, and hole in inner bearing race.
Thanks for all the help and I hope I get a lot of responses from you all.
One more quick question. Do ALL aftermarket u joint bellows (and exhaust bellows) have a wire spiral running through them? Mine had a wire spiral that came out while I was working it out of the bell housing.
