Mercruiser possible gimbal bearing noise

[mike1266]

Hi all,

I've been having some issues with my Alpha one gen 2 outdrive (merc 3.0LX) making noise. I'm not sure how else to put it other than it runs louder than normal. I thought it might have been bad oil, so I gave it a full oil change. When i started it, it was nice and quiet. After about a half day on the water, the sound came back. When I ran the engine on muffs I did not hear much, but when I revved it a bit to about 1700-2000 RPMs, I could hear loud noise coming from the outdrive. I am guessing this is the gimbal bearing going bad but I do not know since I had new gimbal bearing installed 1 yr ago. I might want to try greasing the gimbal bearing through the grease zerk on the starboard side but it seems my grease gun doesn't fit on the zerk. Does it need a special fitting for that? I looked everywhere on google but could not find any answers.

Thanks for any help

 

[Scott06]

To my knowledge no special fitting on the zerk. You may have a permalube bearing install in which case they supply a pipe plug with the bearing to replace the zerk on the transom housing.

merc only supplies permalube bearings currently.Gimbal makes more noise under load and turning. I would pop the drive off check The bearing should be smooth, look for water or gear lube in bellows. Check or replace ujoints especially if they are rusty. Also check engine alignment while off.

if all these are good would check the clear lube in drive fir water or metal and possible pop the top Off the drive look at gears and bearings

 

[mike1266]

I have actually realized that I have ran the engine quite a lot after its oil change, I changed it at the start of this season but ran it about 120 hours since. Can that be a factor in why the engine is running loudly? I also felt like I smell a lot of gas (like the diesel trucks) recently. Any ideas?