Alpha 1 Gear oil leak into bellows??!
 

Good morning,

I have a 1:50 Alpha 1 Gen 1, bought as a complete remfg unit 5 years ago. Has maybe 50 hours on it, all of them with a drive shower. I drain and fill gear oil with Merc High Perf. at start of every season.

Discovered gear oil in my bilge about 1 week after last change. Drive was in up-position on the trailer. Pulled drive off and found TONS of gear oil in the bellows. If there a seal somewhere behind the drive shaft that can be replaced?

Searched forums and found leaks coming from the case split, drain plugs, shift shaft, but nothing that would result in oil in the bellows/bilge.

Any help appreciated.

Input shaft seal is leaking......need to pull input shaft from the drive,,,,, remove the gear from the U joint and the seal will be obvious when you slide everything off the shaft.

You need to set the preload when reinstalling,

x2

Any special tools required for setting preload, or other seals in the upper that should be replaced while I'm in there?

3 tips here, depending how much gear lube in the bellows and timeframe - the gear lube will wash out the grease in the gimbal bearing thus ruining the gimbal bearing in short order,

next gear lube in the bellows will attack the rubber strength of the bellows itself making longevity of it shorten

next the input shaft seal has to have a very smooth surface that it rides on. So look for any roughness and or pits and or corrosion. If any of these issues, that portion u-joint input shaft will need to be replace as well because the seal will never seal properly thus leaking gear oil back into the bellows. Good luck

and I would look hard for this problem since drive was reman and seal didn't hold up that long.

Sorry I read his post over just now and says "tons of gear oil" I am telling you as the smartest thing you can do now is all three tips that I gave in my post. Change the gimbal bearing and change your U-joint bellows and most likely buy a new U- joint input shaft. I know its extra money OOP.