How does this bell housing look?
 

I am in the process of upgrading my drives. I removed them and this is what it looks like. Does this look normal? what do you do to prepair for the new drives. I figured I would clean up all the grease and grime but it looks like ther was some black paint on the surface and a little corrosion. Should the surface be re finished or just brushed clean? How much should I worry about this?

It all looks totally normal to me. If you want to you can scrape the surface with a razor blade to clean it up real quick that is what I ussually do. I would put my fingures in the bearing and spin it feel for any roughness in the bearing. Other then that grease it up and put her back together :D:D

Somewhat round, Black and kinda greasy:eek:

Sorry you asked

It does look fine I would move it around and make sure the pins or whatever there called don't have to much slop. Plus like Jon said stivk your hand in there and check the bearing. YuK!

Ditto-most of that surface does not really seal critically so a light cleanup is fine. If you find any roughness at all in the gimble bearing do yourself a favor and replace it NOW! It absolutely sucks to have it seize or start screaming on Saturday morning at 10 AM(O.K. maybe noon ;) )

Well the one thing I would have to disagree about is that the surface is not a critical seal. Clean the areas where the gasket with a razor blade really good. I usually also coat the area with a thin layer of gasket sealer, then put the gasket on, and coat the gasket on the side that is exposed (where the drive will meet the gasket with a thin layer of gasket sealer also. If any water gets in there it will waste out that bearing in a very short time.

My .02

Ted

Just be sure to replace all the orings with new. And clean out the grooves where the orings set into. The only critical seals are where those o-rings are. Just incase you don't know there is a large thick o-ring that goes around the drive shaft housing on the drive itself. You can go to your local Merc dealer and get a Bravo gasket kit, that includes all orings for remounting the drive.

After checking the bearing check the drive shaft bellows and shift cable bellows for dried/cracked spots. Also, those two SS nuts at the top of the housing should be torqued to 50 lbft.

Eric

You can tell it is not a "critical" (pressure) seal because Merc did not worry about overspray in that area. The gasket helps to properly position the drive on the "critical seals" which are the o-rings and that big one that seals the gimble bearing area.

Well, I always make there is a good seal even to the gasket in case one of the O-rings doesn't seal properly. Better safe than sorry...

Ted

I agree with the above answers but make sure when you check the bearing that you spin it & it feels smooth. If it feels rough, it's easier to replace now then later. Same goes with the bellow

I completely agree with having a clean gasket surface-but one word of caution-DO NOT use a surface conditioning disc(whizzer wheel) to clean the flange. The abrasive will contaminate the gimble bearing and make it fail very quickly, the grease will hold it and make it fail much quicker. Use a gasket scraper and/or a razor blade only.

Thanks all for the advise, I have a razor paint scraper I will use. The bearings are shot I will be getting new ones. I need to get an alignment tool to check that all is well. It looks like I will be getting The IMCO Extreme SC Drives :) :)

Thanks Again

Little trick with the razor blade. Hold it at 90 degrees to the surface and real quick go up and down with it and it will flatten the paint out real quick. You do not have to put much preasure on it at all.

Jon

Since we are all great at looking at things and finding what ever...... Look at this pic and see what's wrong http://www.tekzoned.com/whatswrong/index.html

Be sure to lube the splines on the shaft and double check the ujoints and grease every thing untill clean grease comes out clean it up and put HP gear lube in the drive.

Merc recommends applying 2-4-C lube to the o'rings. BTW, those thin section o'rings, especially the larger one, like to come out of the groove machined for them. It looks like the factory uses some type of adhesive to retain them. This may be what happened to the shift linkage o'ring.

Bell housing "Tweeked"?
 

I noticed today that if you look at the bottom of both the bell housing it is a little closer to the gimble ring on the right side than on the left. Is this normal? Also one bell housing moves lateralally about 1/8" or so. I am thinking the bushings or the washers where the trim senders go may be worn. Does this sound like the case? Any help would be appreciated.