water in Alfa after billows tear

[rpatton]

OK guys I'm working on 1986 120 HP with an Alfa drive. My friend brought the boat to me for a leaking transom which turned out to be a tore drive shaft bellows. My question is can water enter the drive through the shaft seal because of a tore bellows . I just changed the gear oil about a week ago with no signs of water until this tear showed up. What's your thoughts. I don't want to tear into the drive if I don't have to.

 

[Rick Stephens]

Water'll pour in. sink your boat you turn your back on it.

Rick

 

[rpatton]

Yea I know but will it also get into the drive thru the driveshaft seal

 

[rpatton]

Anyone??

 

[Rick Stephens]

Yes. The seals on the input shaft are to keep oil in. It doesn't keep water out well. Have to have back to back seals to also keep water out.

 

[ktbarrentine]

Drain your oil and check for water. You may have gotten lucky.

 

[rpatton]

I was hopeing that was the case with the seals. I drained and refilled along with flushing with oil to remove as much as I can. hopefully I get lucky, there did not seem to be any fillings or grit in the oil that I drained so ill run this weekend and then check it . wish me luck.

 

[Scott Danforth]

depending on how long the water was in there. usually what happens is the shaft starts to rust. the rust east the input seal. then oil goes out, water comes in.

 

[rpatton]

Im thinking it was in there for about a week. I noticed the leak in the transom beginning of last week .he figured it was billows starting to fail so when he came home from vacation we tore it apart and that's when I found the issues.

 

[natemoore]

This happened to me last summer (after-market bellows...never again). I went ahead and replaced the gimbal bearing, which certainly was drenched in salt water, and was going to replace the u-joints until I decided to scrap the entire drive for a new SEI 106.