SX-M not pulling up water.. to Gimble or not to Gimble

[ddmiller2009]

So I overheated the other day. I saw that my raw water pump sort of fell apart. I replaced it, and just to be safe I kept the coil wire off, put the muffs on and turned it over. Nothing coming up. So made an adapter and ran a hose into a bucket right from the raw water pump and it started picking up water. So I don't see any visible damage to the hose in the stern drive, but it looks like I will be pulling it off. One thing that comes to mind, I did adjust the steering cable that turns the stern drive not to long ago (2 trips ago), because when you are driving the boat straight in the water the steering wheel is turned about 30 degrees to the right. It always drive me crazy, anyway I adjusted the cable to make the wheel straight. I may have allowed the stern drive to move too far to one side and caused some damage to the water passage, the hose or the plastic piece it attaches to, although I don't see any any. I do see a tiny hole in the u-joint bellows. So it looks like I will be removing the drive until to see what's going on. I guess I might need to adjust the cable back and live with the steering wheel being off a little. I have looked over a few posts on removing the drive. I have ordered replacement parts, everything but the gimbal bearing. The boat is a 2001 Seaswirl with the 3.0, should I just plan on replacing the gimbal bearing because I'm in there, or inspect it first?

I realize I spelled gimbal wrong in the title, and like the steering wheel being a little off is grating on me like a wool sweater on a hot day, but it won't let change it.


Thanks!