Drive Shaft

[kat-a-tonik]

FD-20C 1966 20hp. I know the drive shaft is supposed to have an o-ring on the top end but when I removed it there was no o-ring on it (I do have a replacement for it), my question is, were is the old o-ring, am I going to have to take the power head off to find and remove it or will I be ok just putting the replacement on and reinstalling the drive shaft.

 

[F_R]

It is very likely the o-ring is not up in there. The last guy may have left it out, or you may have knocked it off the shaft when you removed it. If you are concerned, you can attempt to look up there with a flashlight and attempt to snag it with a piece of wire. Personally unless I had good reason to worry about it--I wouldn't. Unless it is inside the crankshaft splines (extremely unlikely) it won't hurt anything up in there. Just use a new one and be careful not to knock it off as you assemble it.

EDIT: P.S. if you get all done and find you have gear noise or whine when you run it then you can suspect the o-ring may be inside the splines and keeping the drive shaft from sliding all the way in. That would be reason for drastic action to fix it.

 

[kat-a-tonik]

OK, thanks F_R I will just let it slide for now unless there is a problem, I didn't really want to remove the power head,