wingmastr23
Petty Officer 1st Class
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2009
- Messages
- 211
Well - here is the short of it. My boat had the bellows replaced 2 yrs ago. However, the marina who did the repair did NOT have the exhaust bellow - I needed my boat back (towing it on vaca) so I just took the boat without it. I have now used it for 2yrs without the bellow - but I was always irritated that I was missing it.
I decided I would give it a shot myself WITHOUT the bellows tool, taking the boat apart, etc.
I thought long and hard about it and I came up with a plan.
First, I stretched out the bellow by heating it up and pulling it - basically doing the same thing you would do before blowing up a balloon,etc - I also used a hair dryer to heat it up a little before I stretched it out.
I secured the bellow to the aft end of the boat first using a ratchet, extension and jointed adapter.
Once that was done, I placed 2 ropes around the bellow with slip knots on the 2nd and 3rd "ring" of the bellow. (closest to the outdrive) I made sure the knots were tight around the bellow and that one knot was at 3 o'clock and the other at 9 o'clock.
I lowered the lower unit a few inches from the trailered position.
Once that was done, I reached in and grabbed the bellow and pulled it/stretched it towards the lower unit - all the while, my wife (standing above the lower unit) kept the pressure tight by pulling on both ropes evenly.
I put the adhesive on the the other end and pushed it onto the lower unit. Once this was done, the ropes held it in place and I was able to tighten the ring with the screw driver.
After the install, I carefully cut the ropes off the bellow and whallah! It was done!
I have searched several forums on how to do this, and nobody ever described doing it this way so I thought I would share.
Overall - it took me about an hour to get it on there.
What was deemed a nearly impossible task didn't take much time to do once I had the idea.
I decided I would give it a shot myself WITHOUT the bellows tool, taking the boat apart, etc.
I thought long and hard about it and I came up with a plan.
First, I stretched out the bellow by heating it up and pulling it - basically doing the same thing you would do before blowing up a balloon,etc - I also used a hair dryer to heat it up a little before I stretched it out.
I secured the bellow to the aft end of the boat first using a ratchet, extension and jointed adapter.
Once that was done, I placed 2 ropes around the bellow with slip knots on the 2nd and 3rd "ring" of the bellow. (closest to the outdrive) I made sure the knots were tight around the bellow and that one knot was at 3 o'clock and the other at 9 o'clock.
I lowered the lower unit a few inches from the trailered position.
Once that was done, I reached in and grabbed the bellow and pulled it/stretched it towards the lower unit - all the while, my wife (standing above the lower unit) kept the pressure tight by pulling on both ropes evenly.
I put the adhesive on the the other end and pushed it onto the lower unit. Once this was done, the ropes held it in place and I was able to tighten the ring with the screw driver.
After the install, I carefully cut the ropes off the bellow and whallah! It was done!
I have searched several forums on how to do this, and nobody ever described doing it this way so I thought I would share.
Overall - it took me about an hour to get it on there.
What was deemed a nearly impossible task didn't take much time to do once I had the idea.
