U-joint damage?
 

Yesterday I ran my boat for an hour or so with the drives trimmed up like in the photo.

Did I damage the u-joints?

Re: U-joint damage?
 

Are they making noise?
What # on the indicator were you at in conjunction with what do you normally trim to? If you were past the senders and using the trailer switch then I would think the few bolts to pull the drive and inspect it would not be a bad idea but it does not look THAT high from this pic but a little hard to tell.
J

Re: U-joint damage?
 

You DEFINATELY need to pull drives and inspect the U-joints. I can tell you first hand that you will blow a U-joint to hell after doing that.

I went out with a friend in FL earlier this year. We had to work on the boat all morning, and ended up going out at low tide. We had to put myself and the other two passengers on the front of the bow and trim the drives up to do so. We idled out of the shallow channel for a couple miles. One of the engines kept loading up (new SC installed) and we had to keep clearing the crap so as to not foul the plugs. We made it a few hundred feet outside of the shallow areas up on plane before the U-joint came apart.

It is definately worth your time, money, and effort to pull and inspect. While they are off, go ahead and stick an alignment tool in there to check on everything, and lube your U-joints and splines well.

Re: U-joint damage?
 

It is possible.. I agree it is best to pull the drives & check them.. :) J

Re: U-joint damage?
 

On another thread, it was stated that you could trim up to the point where the guide plates of the drive (with the plastic wear surfaces) still overlapped the guide plates on the gimbal housing by at least one inch.

I looked at mine over the weekend, with the rams at full running trim they overlapped by about 2" to 2 1/4"

However, it's no big deal to pull the drives and inspect. Good opportunity to grease the u-joints and drive shaft as well as checking drive/engine alignment.

With two people you should be able to R&R drive and inspect/grease in an hour.