Today I removed both the upper and lower unit to inspect the gimbel, u-joints and the bellows. The boat is a '99 year model with a 3.0L engine and a Alpha 1 Gen II drive. The drive has <100 hrs on it but obviously a few years.<br /><br />Inspection yielded the following:<br />- Drive fluid was clean with no foaming.<br />- There was a lot of grease on the drive side of the bearing.<br />- The gimbel spins freely with no freeplay, however, it does make some noise when spinning the bearing. It is smooth, and feels somewhat tight like a bearing should feel.<br />- There was no evidance of water or rust in the drive.<br />- The U-Joints were tight with no free play that I could feel. They spun freely with no slop.<br />- There was some discoloration on the bore of the gimbel where the shaft inserts. It looked copperish, but could have been a dried lubricant of some sort.<br /><br />I really expected to find more wrong. The drive had seemed to make a little more noise of late. So the question now is "what should I do now"? I need some advice on how to proceede.....
