New member - new boat owner of an old boat

[81seaswirl]

guess to start off with, this is my 1st boat. it's a 81 seaswirl 18 foot with 305 sending power to an 800 OMC outdrive. picked it up for $500, hasnt ran in 2 years. after battling through a few electrical issues (i'm an electrician so that came easy), i've got the motor turning over, and tilt working good.

i've probly spent 10-15 hours reading through the forums on just about any breakdown topic i could find on the 800 drive. from what i can tell from reading through other posts, i'm going to need to rebuild my upper, and possibly lower units before spending too much time on the columbia river. to explain:

the upper - right now it does not appear that i am getting any water from the impeller. i still need to pull the hose off the thermostat housing to verify for sure. does the impeller need to be primed to suck water from Lake Tub-in-the-driveway (i got the water in the tub filled up about 3 inches above the suction holes). and from what i can tell, if i'm going in deep enough to take out the impeller, i may as well put new seal kit on it since it hasnt been ran in 2 years, and replace the bull gears, they are about 50% worn through.

the Lower - everything sounds good on the lower when i shift forward, and reverse - i havnt put alot of throttle to it, nor ran it for much longer than 15 seconds due to the water issue - just wanted to test for grinding sounds. however, when i changed the gear lube, the 1st half of the lube drained out silver, the second half drained out black. so i'm picking up metal bits from something in there. my main question with the lower - am i correct to assume that i do not have an electronic shift on an 1981? and how extensive of a rebuild am i most likely looking at for the lower?

thanks in advance for any help here - i'm sure i'll be posting alot more on this thing as i work through it.

Spencer

 

[Howard Sterndrive]

Re: New member - new boat owner of an old boat

i got the water in the tub filled up about 3 inches above the suction holes

not deep enough - the impeller is in the base of the UPPER gearcase
this is how deep mine sits when starting:

you can buy a set of muffs for around $10 to run it on a trailer- the tub thing doesn't really work very well on these drives
this will work fine hook the garden hose to it and turn the hose on full....:

you have most likely destroyed the impeller, or what was left of it, but that's no biggie because you need to put a new impeller on any used boat you acquire

 

[Howard Sterndrive]

Re: New member - new boat owner of an old boat

you can also get one of these for around $5, hook the garden hose to it and turn the hose on full....

 

[Howard Sterndrive]

Re: New member - new boat owner of an old boat

or for around $40, this replaces one of your water directors on your intermediate housing, and does the same thing as the $5 unit for 8X the price (but not as useful, imo - the $5 rig allows simple in-water testing of impeller flow - the $40 unit does not)

 

[Howard Sterndrive]

Re: New member - new boat owner of an old boat

when i changed the gear lube, the 1st half of the lube drained out silver, the second half drained out black. ..... how extensive of a rebuild am i most likely looking at for the lower?

complete - bearings, clutch dog, probably gears too - that much metal churning away in there over time usually destroys everything

it isn't electric shift, 1978 was the end of that era, 1981 was a changeover year from hydromechanical to full mechanical. to tell, look for a rectangular anode located in a through hole of the lower above the trim fin, behind the 6 idle relief holes - that's full mechanical