Gear Lube questions.- '95 3.0LX - Alpha One

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BeeEl

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Jul 25, 2013
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First of all, this place is great!!! There are so many answers that I don't have to ask near as many questions as I thought I would.
So, I put a brand new lower unit on and yes I made sure it has the seal on it for the lube passage. I took the boat out and tested it. Last night and took the vent cap off to check level. I couldn't see it, but that didn't surprise me much. I figure there would be some air pockets and settling.I will top it off tonight. My question is, I noticed on the tip of the vent plug that there was some water droplets. Droplets don't scare me, but they've got to be coming from somewhere. So in the upper unit, where should I look and should I be alarmed? The second piece is, I noticed my outdrive doesn't have a dipstick like I thought gen II were supposed to have. I noticed I have a hose coming inside from the outdrive. It is just dangling, but has a bolt in the end of it plugging it up. I have to assume it had a gear lube monitoring setup on it and the hose must have gone to the reservoir. Is it as simple as putting a reservoir back on it or are there more to those systems than just that? Thanks in advance for all the help.

BL
 
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BeeEl

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Re: Gear Lube questions.- '95 3.0LX - Alpha One

Looks good. I do have the wires there so I know that is what they went to. Are the wires solely for audible warnings? I assume this is simply a gravity fed system.
What about the other question, the water droplets on the vent plug? Is there really anywhere in the upper unit this could be happening?

Thanks yet again!
 
Howard Sterndrive

Howard Sterndrive

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Re: Gear Lube questions.- '95 3.0LX - Alpha One

a pressure test of the drive is the way to determine where the lube is leaking. There's a dozen probable places it could leak.
I'm sure there's a sticky on the procedure in the Adult's Only section up top.

On my Gen 2, the shift shaft seal is where the lube left. Cost me an upper. I just installed an aftermarket lube reservoir as mine did not have one originally being a 1992.
 
oldjeep

oldjeep

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Re: Gear Lube questions.- '95 3.0LX - Alpha One

BeeEl said:
Looks good. I do have the wires there so I know that is what they went to. Are the wires solely for audible warnings? I assume this is simply a gravity fed system.
What about the other question, the water droplets on the vent plug? Is there really anywhere in the upper unit this could be happening?

Thanks yet again!
Click to expand...

Yes, the wires are just for the low level warning and it is simply gravity feed. As for the rest - the pressure test suggested is your best bet if you are sure you got it full when you filled it up the first time.
 
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BeeEl

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Re: Gear Lube questions.- '95 3.0LX - Alpha One

I will top it off tonight. If it requires much or the vent burps milk, I'll move on to the vac/pressure test. What I don't understand is if you separate the top from bottom, how/where do u perform test? And if I leave the whole unit on the boat and just plug the reservoir line and it loses pressure, where do I go from there. I understand to spray it and look for bubbles, but I don't really understand what I'm spraying. Just the whole outside? Hopefully I won't need to do the test.
Wouldn't the easiest thing to do is to put the reservoir system on it and just watch for excessively low levels?
 
oldjeep

oldjeep

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Re: Gear Lube questions.- '95 3.0LX - Alpha One

Honestly you could probabally pressure test it in the way you describe.

I think before I just put the reservoir on to watch, I'd want to make sure that it wasn't letting water in.
 
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