A tale of 2 Alphas...one's gonna need repair

[Blueghost924]

Hi, I purchased a boat recently with the knowledge that the sterndrive had water leaking in the bellows and was locked up (see ugly attached pic). I removed the sterndrive and set it aside. I have a spare Alpha 1 in the garage that I purchased about a year and half ago from a marina, and it's been sitting unused in the garage until now. Because of work commitments, I have a shop performing the essential work needed, such as a new gimbal bearing, new lower shift cable and new sets of bellows. I also dropped off the "spare" sterndrive for the shop to install.

I got a call back from the shop, and the technician let me know that he went to rotate the spare stern drive's shift shaft by hand, the drive didn't want to engage properly. Mind you, this is with my spare sterndrive off the boat on the stand. To be honest, I do believe I've noticed the same phenomenon when I had the spare staged in my garage before I delivered it. The technician believes there is a worn part in the drive assembly (he's seen this problem many many times), and that it's usually a 3-4 hour labor job to replace the work parts. Sounds like excessive wear in the drive shaft assembly.

Thoughts? Does this sounds reasonable from what the technician is saying? It seems to make sense to me.

 

[Bt Doctur]

probably a worn shift spool he was talking about

 

[Blueghost924]

That's exactly what he mentioned - thanks Boat Doc. Sounds like his analysis is definitely on target, along with the 3.5-4 hours labor.

 

[achris]

Concur.