Vibration after having bellows replaced

[showdog]

Just replaced the bellows after taking in water through the top bellow. Boat ran great for about an hour then experienced a pretty strong vibration while in the middle of a turn. Vibration was then pretty consistent on the way back but at times would go away. Vibration was there as we idled also. I'm wondering if this might be related to having the bellows replaced or a new problem. Have never felt this vibration before. Thoughts?

 

[bruceb58]

You need to have your drive removed and have the u-joints checked. The fact that you got water into your bellows could have caused the u-joints to fail.

Also check the gimbal bearing for roughness.

 

[showdog]

Thanks Bruce. What else should I do while there? The mechanic and I talked about replacing the gimbal bearing and the drive cable but discovered that it does not have a gimbal bearing and the parts supplier recommended not replacing the drive cable if not needed as the replacement is not nearly as good as the original if it was still in good shape. It's a 1993 DP-D 740. What do you think?

 

[bruceb58]

Ha...I just replied on another thread that was a Volvo of your vintage telling people that the poster didn't have a gimbal bearing. My mistake for not asking.

You still need to check the u-joints like I said.

An interesting thing to do is run it on muffs and rotate the drive back in forth when you are out of the water to see if the vibration gets worse. Also may need to check the driveshaft bearings. Hopefully those are ok since the engine may have to come out to replace those.

We had a vibration on a Volvo 270 drive that ended up being a bad damper. We went through a whole bunch of grief trying to diagnose that thing. We eventually found out it was the issue when we replaced the engine and saw it was cracked.