What Happened here??

[ThomW]

4.3 OMC Cobra drive
My buddy brought his boat by after it stopped working for him. Looking it over I found this!

Gear lube is coming out of it. Unfortunately, he keeps boat in the water and didn't realize anything was going on until it was too late and boat stopped moving while in gear. There is now a large crack in the side of lower unit too, so I imagine gears blew to pieces and cracked the casing. My question is what could cause the damage seen in this picture? Could hitting a rock on that steel skeg guard have pressed into the casing hard enough to crack the casing around the prop? Which then let water into the lower unit and oil out until the gears blew from having almost no oil left? Or would lack of gear oil and the gears going be able to cause this part to crack off? Just trying to wrap my head around what was the cause of this. Gears in the top half of lower unit look fine with no damage to any of the teeth.

Thanks for any ideas!

 

[Scott Danforth]

the drive is toast and has been toast for a while. look at the hoaky arsed repairs done so far.

someone put sheet metal over the drive, which sped up the corrosion issue, and the bearing retainer looks like someone cobbled that together with a bit of flat bar.

 

[ThomW]

the drive is toast and has been toast for a while. look at the hoaky arsed repairs done so far.

someone put sheet metal over the drive, which sped up the corrosion issue, and the bearing retainer looks like someone cobbled that together with a bit of flat bar.

I am a bit confused. Aren't those pieces of "flat bar" supposed to be there on the OMC? Looking at the parts diagrams, they seem to be what is on this motor after the retainer....
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[Scott Danforth]

that may be similar, however what is in the pic is not the retention clip from OMC

the corrosion pin-holes and rotten aluminum peeking out from under the shoddy sheet metal skeg repair give away the fact that the drive was toast a while ago. so now take that weakened drive and run it into anything larger than a gold fish and you have a broken case.

 

[ThomW]

that may be similar, however what is in the pic is not the retention clip from OMC

the corrosion pin-holes and rotten aluminum peeking out from under the shoddy sheet metal skeg repair give away the fact that the drive was toast a while ago. so now take that weakened drive and run it into anything larger than a gold fish and you have a broken case.

Thanks for the clarification!

 

[phillyg]

You're playing a guessing game over what happened, and I don't think it much matters. Fix/replace and get out there.