Drilling out a Stuck Gimbal Bearing
 

Hello all. Long time lurker….first time poster. Hoping somebody here can lend a hand.

I'm doing a gimbal ring swap on a 2003 Bravo Three. All has been going very well up to this point. (BIG shout out to Ron Bender at JR Marine for putting together a great solution to a worn gimbal ring!) As part of the project, I decided to change out the bellows and gimbal bearing while everything is apart and accessible.

I CANNOT get the gimbal bearing to budge in the least little bit. I tried first with a three-jaw puller and a 5# slide hammer. Nothing. Alright…I'm a resourceful guy…I just switched to an axle bearing puller with a threaded rod / nut type setup to jack it out. Still nothing. I've been trying everything I can think of for three days…..add some penetrating oil….try a little heat….crank on the screw puller like King Kong hopped up on a case of Monster Energy drink. This thing will not give it up.

I found a post on here about drilling a series of holes in the outer carrier to loosen it up. Anybody able to walk me through that a little bit?

How deep do I drill the holes? Try to go all the way through, and I'm into the gimbal housing which seems like a bad plan.

Am I trying to drill as close to the junction of the carrier and the gimbal housing as I can, or just drilling more toward the middle of the aluminum ring?

Once drilled, do I need to try to chisel the ring to crack it or break it up somewhat?

Any other thoughts?

I'll take it to the dealer if need be, but I'm having a hard time figuring out why this thing is so stuck. I should be able to do this.

Thanks for ANY help.

Spidey

Keep good pressure on it with the puller. Keep heating it then cooling it with pb blaster. Keep the pressure on it.

the simplest way i have done when i absolutly cant get it out !! is take a die grinder and grind 2 spots in it so u can knock the bearing side ways .if you look at a new bearing you can see how the bearing is turned to the side and removed .once you turn the bearing sideways you can pull the center out .then just grind the alum case in 1 spot almost thru and the case will actually collapse ..the correct way to install the new brg is with the flat cutouts toward the back of the engine.. i always install them facing toward me so in the event you need to change it again you can juct swap the center part ,, ive installed a hundred of them that way w no issues ever

It's easier to cut the aluminum outer race if you pull out the center race, if your snatching hard enough the center will brake out, then cut the outer in two and pull it out.

Thank you so much, this makes perfect sense to me and confirms some of my thinking. I need to think carefully about how, once the bearing is out, to best make my cuts into the case without going too far and damaging the gimbal housing. Wouldn't take much to make an expensive mistake.

I also can't for the life of me figure out why this is so stuck. There seems to be very little corrosion overall and NOBODY I've talked to has had to resort to this. Makes a guy start wondering if he either an idiot or somehow his boat is different from the rest of the world!

So here's an interesting dilemma. In order to get the axle bearing puller opened up behind the gimbal bearing, you have to go beyond the grease seal that sits in front of it. There's just not room to get the puller opened up between the two. Made sense to me at the time….they'd just both be pulled out together. My new bearing is a permalube, so I wasn't worried about trying to salvage or even replace the seal. So now that the grease seal is pulled up against the front side of the gimbal bearing, it's preventing me from getting a full 90 degree turn on the bearing. I can get it turned part way, but not 90 degrees. It's looking like instead of being able to just grind out two areas on the outer case, I might have to grind out all the way around to get the bearing out.

No reason that shouldn't work as I see it, just a little more grinding, but I thought I'd throw it out there for discussion.

Had to chisel one out of an Alpha drive years ago. Sucky job alright.

Hate to tell u this but you need to put that seal back in there .. That seal has nothing to do with the bearing being permalube .will it work without it yes however I would put the seal back..I would still grind the 2 slots and turn the bearing side ways . You need to hit it with a chisel opposit the cut outs seal is junk already and it will move back

Got the bearing turned sideways….just needed a bigger hammer, that's all. :angry-smiley-044: Now I need to grind the slots and keep working on getting the bearing out.

I've got no problem putting a new seal in if it needs it. In for a penny, in for a pound at this point. It was just my understanding that since the new bearings are sealed, and you no longer have to grease them, the grease seal was basically pointless.

I really appreciate the help. I'll keep posting my progress. Maybe it'll help someone else out someday.

Gotta' say though…I keep hearing my father (God rest his soul) in the back of my head…."Son, when you find yourself in the bottom of a hole, sometimes the best plan is to just stop digging."

Man, I miss him.

Big ass slide hammer (5 lb slide) and a "L" shapped hook, is how i got mine out a couple years back. left side smack, right side smack, top smack, bottom smack, ect with lots of penetrating lube. Round and round with the slide hammer then all of a sudden "pop" there she was.

Now I know it isn't the "correct" way, but it worked for me.

The new bearing I installed has a outter race way or housing that looks to now stay in the gimble and the center part goes in at 90 degrees, then push it straight. Looks to be a 2 min job now for next time