Alpha drive leak
 

Got the boat home from storage yesterday and see I have a small leak. There is a hole on the right side toward the front bottom right, just above the nose cone that its leaking from. Is that the shift seal leaking? It's not leaking enough to make the drive low but I figure if its going out, water is going in. Anyone know what seal is leaking? Thanks

Could be anything between the two halves .May well be shift shaft .Could also be lower seal of upper unit. Water pump base .Or just the quad ring on oil passage between upper and lower .Any of these leaking can end up with oil coming out of the weep hole in front of drive when drive is up.

That don't sound fun to figure out the bad one!!

Sounds like the shift shaft seal. Is it Gen 2? If not the older ones without the resevoir the shift shaft seal was made to relieve pressure, if you over filled it with gear lube it will leak out a little lube there. On the Gen 2's the pressure goes back into the resevoir.

It is a gen 1. It is over filled now. I am in the proccess of making a oil resivior for it. I'm going to pull the bottom half off and see if I can fine a oil trail coming from something. I'm assuming water would leak back in??

When you pull the lower you're going to end up with a number of oil trails and it might be tough to ID the culprit. motor hit all of the usual suspects in his post. If it's overfilled the oil will find somewhere to escape (even with good seals), and that may or may not lead to water intrusion. If it's a bad seal then water can definitely get in the drive.

It wouldn't hurt to replace all of the seals, throw in an impeller, and pressure test the drive. Parts are cheap and the drive manual is floating around online. There is a plunger/spring/check ball assembly that you'll need between the upper and the gimbal housing to install a resevoir unless you're doing it via the upper fill plug.

ETA: dang, this is my first post here after almost two years...

I have a fitting for the top vent hole for the resivior. I just rebuilt the lower 2 yrs ago maybe I did not get something right. I will find out tomarrow I guess. Thanks

Well I started up the boat today and I got water pouring out the hole in the front of the lower that has been leaking? I don't know if that's normal I can't remember if it did it last yr. Anyone know?

It's normal.

It's main reason is as a water drain for the drive.....big plus is so that when a boat is stored outside during winter, any rain going into back of prop and thus into back of drive housing, does not freeze and break it.

I learned this many moons ago when I had a nose cone on one and did not seal off the drive from poor man winter.

When I pickle the engine for the winter, I do so with a 5 gallon bucket attached to my muffs. So my favorite pickle juice does not go all over the ground, I tape (good electrical tape) the hole. The, of course, pull it off later.

Great. I have been sweating bullets the last hour. Got everything else running good so I'm free to burn the go go juice!!

Tore the lower off today and it looks like the seal between the lower and upper is messed up. So that looks good for the leak?? But I got a little bit more prob. The gimble bearing is shot. It was bad last yr and is toast this yr. prob is I have a little bit of water in the u joint bellows. About 1 cup or so. 2 yrs ago I redone the bellows and put on new. I flooded the boat last yr for about 10 min (forgot plug). I wonder if thats how it got in there? The u joints are not rusted and really nothing looks rusted. I don't really think the bellows is leaking but not sure. I also had a rip in the gasket between the drive and gimble housing. I put some silicone on it but maybe not enough. I guess I could reseal the bellows up again. I'm ready for a bravo and junk this alpha!!