gimbal rings

[very necessary's mom]

I have a 1999 Rinker 330 with twin 350 Mags and Bravo 3 drives. When the boat was pulled this year, I was told we needed to replace the gimbal rings. One drive (port, I think) had about 6-7? of movement when you pushed on the outdrive, the other not as much. They say the hole is rounding out and must be replaced. I?ve been quoted $6300 to do both, which includes hauling the boat out, and R & R the engines and replacing the gimbal ring and associated parts. I?m told to not drive the boat as we risk lazy steerage response and at some point NO steerage response.

I have read several threads on this subject on different forums. I have the following questions:
Will be OK to use the boat for awhile if we tighten the bolts (is it 1 or 2 per drive?, I?m confused) every time we use the boat? If so, exactly where are these bolts? My husband looked for them and can?t find them. He found the steering arm and assumes the bolts are near it, but he could not find the bolts.

Do both drives need to be done at the same time?

What is the sense of urgency on this repair? I assume it is unlikely that both would go out at the same tie, so we?d still have one good drive to get us back in. We are on an inland lake and can just putter around without coming up on plane if need be. Can we/should we come up on plane until this is repaired?

What should I expect to pay? Seems like the going price per posts on the forum is this should be about a $2500 repair per drive.

What happens when one of the rings goes? Will it still support the outdrive? Or will the outdrive fall off???

Several posts mention a rebuilt ring from JR Marine. They say it is built for off shore racing boats and is very well made and is considerably less money than a new one. Is this a good idea?

There are only three places on the lake where the boat is kept that do this type of work and hauling the boat off the lake requires an oversized load permit.

Your help and comments are greatly appreciated!

 

[HT32BSX115]

Re: gimbal rings

Howdy,

The drive probably won't "fall off" but you could lose steering and run into/over someone...

If you take it to a dealer it will be very expensive as you have noticed.....but unless you can "doityourself" it will be expensive any way you slice it....there's a LOT of labor involved.....I wouldn't run the boat that way.

Have you seen this? http://www.mercstuff.com/gimbalringwear.htm


By the way, Tightening the "bolts" could "fix it" temporarily. (tightening the bolts regularly could have prevented it too!!) It sounds like if they're REALLY sloppy, they're past that point though.....


Here's a great picture of what they're talking about according to your description...
http://www.sterndrives.com/steering_play.html

 

[45Auto]

Re: gimbal rings

I unfortunately learned all about Bravo gimbal rings last year. The two bolts they are referring to are the ones the red arrows in the picture below are pointing at. They are on the ends of a u-bolt that squeezes the gimbal ring to the gimbal shaft. If you don’t keep these bolts tight then the steel gimbal shaft wears out the aluminum gimbal ring.

You can see the end of gimbal shaft in the picture below, where the red arrow is pointing. You can see it on your boat if you look up, just below the two bolts referred to in the first paragraph.

The gimbal shaft should be locked solidly to your gimbal ring. You will find that if you grab your drives and move them back and forth the gimbal shaft will not move, but the drive will because the gimbal ring is worn out. You can try tightening the bolts like I did. Stock bolts should be torqued to 53 ft-lb. It won’t help, and when you try to tighten them even further and the u-bolt breaks you will HAVE to fix it!

I used the JR rebuilt gimbal ring, JR hardened gimbal shaft, JR extra-strength U-bolt, and JR transom plug kit when I rebuilt mine. That’s what the steel plate with the 4 bolts on the transom shield is. You can put holes in the transom shield using the JR kit or the Mercury kit (looks like Frankenstein head bolts on the sides of the shield) , or you can pull the engines to get to the gimbal shaft. I used the JR kit and removed it through the transom shield.

Took me one morning to pull everything off and ship JR the worn out gimbal ring. They shipped me a replacement as soon as they received mine, got it back the same week. Took me another morning to put everything back together.

If you’re having someone else do it, using the JR or Mercury transom kit, I would expect about $800 labor (8 hours at $100/hour) plus about $500 in parts (using the JR parts) per drive. If you use new Mercury parts, the parts bill will be between $1500 - $2000 per drive.

If you decide to have the engines pulled instead I have no clue what that would cost you.

I put over 50 hours on mine after it was rebuilt last year and it’s still solid as a rock. ZERO play in the drive.

Your drives will not fall off as the rings wear. Your steering will get worse and worse. I assume if you let it go long enough you could lose control of the drive entirely. Your drive with 6” of play is in VERY BAD shape. Mine had about 1.5" of play when I re-did it. I would not run it with a drive that bad.

Let me know if you need any more info.