2Slow4me

Scary day for me today, was out running in perfect calm cold weather, but was running perfect...until. sudden turn, and I'm under water.

Lucky to be in one piece.

The gimbal? (the part that holds the uppper lower unit to the boat with the below inside) broke off completely.

Did I hit something? or did that part break?

And what would have happened if I have external Hydraulic steering? (something I was on the fence of adding)

If the gimbal (??) was fatigued, how would I know that? What do I look for going forward?

When I buy my next boat, how would I know?

Thanks for the input.

vegaskeith

I think without hydraulic steering running a single at that speed puts alot of stress on the drive. I've always been told if it run's over 70 you have to have hydraulic steering.

fireboatpilot

The gimble is a 3 piece assembly, 4 if you count the inner ring. There's the housing that bolts to the transom, the ring or horse collar and the helmet or bell. The ring is what gives you your left to right pivot and the bell gives you the up and down pivot. Wear can and does happen at both of these pivot points and the pins wear. Regular inspection and maintenence needs to be done in these areas. Fatigue and wear can lead to failure. The parts are aluminum and break as you have experienced. Glad your OK and must have had a kill switch on? External steering might have prolonged the failure and is reccomended at 70+mph but it probly would have broken sooner or later. Check for wear by trying to move the outdrive up, down, side to side looking for play at the pivot points. "0" play is good. Do this with engines off, no pressure to the steering or trim. Looking for play in the pivot pins, not the trim and steering cylnders. It's more common than you think these things do break and never when your doing slow in a no wake zone if you catch my drift? I hope that helps?

2Slow4me

That helps greatly!

I did not have a kill switch, but my hand was on the throttle. I WILL out a kill switch in now.

With the play, I had new upper busing put in a few years ago, as the drive have significant left and right play, and I check that twice a year.

Just changed the lower unit fluid, so was looking around and moving around (but not up and down as you suggested) and everything looked good.

My steering cable was seized in the spring, and had to put a new cable, so when the cable was out, I moved the drive to feel it, and it moved freely (but did not check for any signs of fatigue)

Could the aluminum part that keeps the torque from twisting the drive (lower part of the bell I think) that the paint wears off?

If that would break off, that could twist the drive and cause it to crack??

Mr Gadgets

Do you have an standard transom assy? That would be noted by trim limit/sender switches mounted over the hinge pins. If you have large ss disc, then it is the HP unit.
If you have a standard assy.. the hinge pins can unscrew from the helmet. HP fastens the pins to the gimbal and the helmet rides on the pins.
I did the same thing you did, about 15 yrs ago. I was knocked out cold for 5mins and the boat stayed upright due to the single ram steering. The boat went into a flat spin when the drive attemped to come off. Merc told me the gimbal broke at the wear pad area and the helmet was ripped off the hinge pins.
I installed the HP gimbal and bellhousing and full hydraulic steering. I recently removed those pieces to mount an Imco SCX, using the Imco gimbal (much heavier duty) and new helmet for the SCX.
If it were me.. I would go to HP unit with full hydraulic.
Dick

BUIZILLA

contact Ed Cozzi, he may have some info for you on this... your NOT the first..

ezstriper

scary, had the happen to friend of mine....was thrown into the dash..busted him up pretty good...

RunninHotRacing163.1

Ditto

FIXX

iTrader: (2)

does it look like this?click on the pic of the broken drive.


http://www.arneson-industries.com/pa...ravoConversion


even hydro steering wont help in this situation..but this will


http://www.hillmarine.com/Gimbal.html

Too Stroked

I'd recommend hyraulic steering for anybody running over about 65 MPH. Not only does it reduce steering effort and feedback, it also lessens the wear on your drive by keeping it much more stable. Without it, once your steering components start to wear, the drive starts banging back and forth and rapidly wears things out - then something breaks. That might be what happened to you. Would hydraulic steering have prevented your mishap? It would at least have lessened the abrupt turn.

Once you've driven a high performance boat with hydraulic steering, you'll never want anything else. In fact, you won't feel safe with anything else.