Bellow condition??

Wave34

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Oct 17, 2017
Messages
356
My boat is used in fresh water 99.9% of the time and is stored on the trailer when not boating with the outdrive lowered to make the below straight.

I want to know if the condition of the bellow is bad or normal.
Rubber seems dry a bit and I can see a shallow crack.

The new Volvo bellow are hard plastic compared to this one that is all rubber.
Are they better?
I never changed it since I bought the boat 8 years ago.
 

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Lou C

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Nov 10, 2002
Messages
13,463
Definitely change it, the cracks mean the rubber is getting oxidized and dried out and isn’t far from failure
 

bruceb58

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Mar 5, 2006
Messages
30,657
I changed my Volvo bellows every 6 years on DonS's recommendation from many years ago before he passed.
 

Kosmofreeze

Seaman
Joined
Aug 23, 2023
Messages
53
My DP-SM bellows were last changed in 2011. My boat is dry stored (fresh water only, trailered and inside) when not in use. It saw about 200 hours use in 24 years. I changed both bellows this spring. If you are handy with tools, don't sweat pulling the drive - watch some youtube vids - it's not bad at all. My 24 year old bellows (soft rubber) still looked new - no evidence of cracking. I wonder if the new hard plastic design will last as long as the old soft rubber design ... I hope so.
 

Scott06

Admiral
Joined
Apr 20, 2014
Messages
7,238
My DP-SM bellows were last changed in 2011. My boat is dry stored (fresh water only, trailered and inside) when not in use. It saw about 200 hours use in 24 years. I changed both bellows this spring. If you are handy with tools, don't sweat pulling the drive - watch some youtube vids - it's not bad at all. My 24 year old bellows (soft rubber) still looked new - no evidence of cracking. I wonder if the new hard plastic design will last as long as the old soft rubber design ... I hope so.
I had similar experince with my merc alpha gen 2 I changed them at 18 years as they were just stating to get real stiff. Never leaked. Use OEM bellows they last.

since I planned to keep the boat no sense getting the last year or two out of them. If these ones last 15 years it’s someone else problem.
 

Lou C

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Nov 10, 2002
Messages
13,463
I have found that the older all rubber (if OEM) Cobra/Volvo SX bellows (same part I think) lasts about 10 years before you start seeing cracks in the folds. I last did mine in 2016. So maybe this spring, I have two spares in the garage lol. Like everything else for the Cobra.
Think about it, it's like a tire. Would you leave trailer tires on your trailer that look like the pix of the bellows above? Same issue and same potential bad outcome!
 

bruceb58

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Mar 5, 2006
Messages
30,657
The problem is...if they do leak, you are going to possibly have thousands of dollars of damage as the water in the bellows will get into your drive as well as possibly sink your boat.

Cheap insurance to replace the u-joint bellows every 5 years or so...per DonS(RIP).
 
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