Offshoreonly.com - bravo leaking

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Quote:

Originally Posted by fireboatpilot (Post 3178978)

Chances are it's been leaking for awhile now. I wouldn't try to bandaid the problem and possibly make the transom worse than it already might be. Sooner or later your going to have to do it the right way anyway. Has the transom assy ever been off the boat? What year boat? Use that 5200 and theres another job to do later, removing it, besides looking like crap. Maybe just silicone it to get thru the end of the season but now that its wet between there it probly won't stick where it needs to. Sounds like that side to side slop needs attention anyway. 1/2" play? In the steering? Salt water boat? The bottom transom bolts are probly rotted off.

as far as i know everything is factory sealed other than routine maintance, and i did use silicone instead of 5200 like you said it prob would of looked like crap, boat is a 2000, never noticed any water in bilge before always stayed dry, i plan to work it over good this winter just hopping to get the rest of summer out of it, first owner used in salt some, bought it 6yrs ago with 100hrs and has been fresh since my ownership, only 2nd owner, and yes i plan to address steering this winter with full imco dual ram setup anyway

Quote:

Originally Posted by blownhammer2000 (Post 3177576)

for about 2 hours had drive up 100% during that time

I would bet you have a bellows leak and when you lift the drive it stretches the boot and that is why you filled with water under those circumstances. When the drive is down it pushed the crack/slice in the bellows back together and it leaks slower. I say this partially because I had a similiar situation with a slice in the bellows. I swore up and down it wasn't leaking but when I pulled it apart it was sliced.

A leak past the foam gasket that sandwiches between the transom assembly and the back of the transom would be pretty rare. If that was a common problem there would be a lot of sunk boats in the world.

It goes without saying that you have made sure the TA is tighlty snugged up against the transom right...

P.S. - if you do have a problem it is worth spending a couple weekends pulling the engine. A great learning experience, and after you do it once you realize how easy it is (unfortunately I had to find this out the hard way).

P.S.S. - if the bellows is bad replace the gimbal bearing as well because it will be destined to fail prematurely, and inopportunely.

I had a bad gimble ring and noticed some water leaking from the transom assembly. The water turned out that t was leaking from the steering pin and would only leak when drive was full to port.