Silly question, but needing help please

[csherrill2]

I have a 97 mercruiser 4.3L with a mercury alpha one gen 2 outdrive. heres my dilemma. I have changed the gear oil in my outdrive twice in a month, (new gear oil after a rebuild, then the second time was when I had to look for a water flow issue) Now I am going to assume I have everything correct NOW, and I dont want to add another 25 dollars of gear oil in my lower unit again unless I know its going to be right. Heres my question. CAN I run my engine for 2-3 minutes to verify that waterflow is appropriately going to where it needs to go without having gear oil in my outdrive? I WILL NOT be running it in gear, just long enough to verify that water is going through the block etc. I dont want to cause any harm to anything but I also do not want to throw away another 25 dollars worth of oil again. Thanks.

 

[Maxz695]

Re: Silly question, but needing help please

as long as it is not engaged the pinion gear will just freely spin. There should be enough lube left on the main shaft bearing to allow a few minutes of idle speed without causing damage to it.

 

[90stingray]

Re: Silly question, but needing help please

Boy thats a big maybe that i wouldn't want to take a chance on. I would either remove the drive and cram a hose in the inlet or fill with some cheap gear lube.

 

[Bondo]

Re: Silly question, but needing help please

Boy thats a big maybe that i wouldn't want to take a chance on. I would either remove the drive and cram a hose in the inlet or fill with some cheap gear lube.

Ayuh,... I'd put back in the oil I just took out, rather than runnin' it dry...

 

[csherrill2]

Re: Silly question, but needing help please

okay well I guess I could do that... I am more worried about the connection from my sea pump to the water inlet, the hose was removed and I cant see to line it up very well while putting it together... I will just reload the old gear oil that I saved just incase. I just hate using cold gear oil, too hard to drain. lol. thanks everyone. couldnt find this answer anywhere.

 

[stonyloam]

Re: Silly question, but needing help please

Just put the used oil back in for a quick test. To paraphrase a wise man: "Any oil is better than NO oil at all"

 

[csherrill2]

Re: Silly question, but needing help please

Yup I will agree to that. But the wise man I know said "when in doubt change it, gear oil is cheap"... it took me a year to discover what that meant, after a maintenance team put a $6,000 gear box on, and didn't bother to check the oil, it ran for about an hour, and locked up, so they had to get one rushed in the same night, cost them around$21,000..... so yeah.... gear oil is cheaper than a gearbox lol

 

[Eric 3.7LX Alpha 1]

Re: Silly question, but needing help please

Yeah, gear oil with a month on it is still new to me. How many hours are on it? Drained into a clean bucket and pumped right back in.

You mention cold lube is too hard to drain, but sounds like it has already been drained?

 

[csherrill2]

Re: Silly question, but needing help please

It has no hours on it at all. I just pumped it in like 3 days ago, drained it out last night. I did drain it into a clean container, and capped it to keep dirt, etc out and planned on pumping it back in, but just wanted to see if I could bypass the hassle of that again incase I needed to tear the lower unit off the sterndrive again. But I will get back to it today.