Found drive lube in bellows
 

Pulled my bravo one off for some regular maintenance, greasing u joints, etc. found a 1/4 cup or so of drive lube in the bellows. I can only assume it’s from the input seal. Took a look at that, and the input yoke is hard running the seal. Seems to me the previous rebuild didn’t get the seal in all the way, or there is a shimming issue on the input shaft. Doesn’t appear to be rubbed through as I can still see part numbers in the face, but seems to have been rubbing for the roughly 30 hrs since I got it back. Is this an emergent issue or chances I can run it until October or roughly 20 hrs feasible? Then pull for the winter to get fixed?
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I would say if you have no slop, in out movement of input shaft, I would say you are safe to run it, just keep an eye on oil level.

I have a formula 311 with twin bravo one and my one drive was leaking oil bad enough on input that I could see it in the bilge. This is the time period when I just bought the boat and the previous owner told me how he had to keep filling the gear lube. He ran it and I ran it the remainder of that year, maybe 10 or so hours by me that year and 5-10 hrs that year previous owner. When I pulled it, I had in out movement this why my seal was tore. (Input nut came loose and things moved around). My point is I ran mine with slop on input (not knowing at time) and it carried through the year. Then I rebuilt the drives.

So I think you’d be fine. Of course it’s not the desired path to take, but if you know about it and have a plan and you have no end movement, run it snd watch the oil level.

hope this helps,

Chris

I probably will run it. Likely about 10-15 hrs this year. Just dumb that the yoke is rubbing the seal. Looking at my log, this is 25 hrs after a new upper gear set.

just checked for end play. I have zero.

I just dealt with the same issue on my port drive. When rebuilt by a Merc dealer, they didn’t use Loctite 272 (red) on the outer contact surface of the input shaft seal where it’s pressed into the carrier as per the manual. The seal crept outward like yours and was rubbing up against the yoke. The seal’s metal face was scored and discolored from heat damage.

The new seal is in and so far so good. It wasn’t a difficult fix, you’ll just need some special tools like the spanner wrench and an in-lb beam style 1/4” torque wrench to set the preload.

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Seal where large spanner nut is likely leaking…we had same issue a long time ago.