Water in Outdrive oil

adruid

adruid

Seaman
Joined
Apr 3, 2014
Messages
52
Last time I took my Mercruiser powered boat out, I noticed some oil in the water behind the boat. Today I took the cap off the outdrive and saw that the oil was an emulsion of water and gear oil. Drained the oil and cleaned off the mating surfaces of the outdrive and the cap, then put a Permatex form a gasket on and tightened it all back down. Water may have gotten in as the water jacket is close to the oil reservoir and the old gasket material looked like it may have been breached. Is there any other place I should be looking for water to be leaking into the gear oil? Thanks for any suggestions.
 
harringtondav

harringtondav

Commander
Joined
May 26, 2018
Messages
2,469
More info on the age and history of your out drive, the model etc. may help. But I don't think you're in for an easy fix. Water in the out drive normally means you need to replace all the seals. This means you'll have to pull the out drive. Which is good, because a leaking drive shaft bellows can rust the sealing surface of the gear yoke on the out drive, and deteriorate the seal.

Other pros on this forum can advise on pressure testing, etc. But I believe the end game will be a seal job.
 
adruid

adruid

Seaman
Joined
Apr 3, 2014
Messages
52
Outdrive is an Alpha MR/1 upper unit (#6821876) with a R lower unit. All were original on the 1984 Mercruiser 140 3.0L engine. Drive shaft bellows is about two years old now. How many seals am I looking at here? Thanks for the response!
 
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