bravo gimbal bolt stripped - need advise
 

one ot the two horizontal gimbal bolts is stripped on my outdrive. it is one of the two bolts that define the trim pivot axis. the bolts cost $15 each and i lost two in two weekends!!

the outdrive casting threads are stripped. I am taking the bolt in to get a helicoil kit. does that make the most sense?

If I trim the unit up a little and take the other bolt out, can i rock the outdrive out along the drive spline pivoting about the hyd cylinders to reveal the hole i will need to tap and install the helicoil?

otherwise i will have to try to drill and tap through the clearance hole on the gimbal housing. I don't really want to take the whole drive off. I am out of town for two days and need it ready to watch the smoke on the water poker run!!!!

any suggestions would be great!!

Stripped bolt's
 

It's actually an easy repair, I just fixed one for a buddy last week.

That bell housing is easy to remove, looks intimidating but its not. Remove the six bolts
holding your drive on. Next the two bolt's you
stripped. behind the bell housing is a clamp
for your bellow's and for your oil line. Also your shifter cable.

Your threads need to be ground out super clean.
And taken to a Good welder. A tig welder will
get you the best work. Redrill and tap it's a
5/16 - 18 tap. If you didn't already know
it needs to be loctited. ( RED ) otherwise you
will continue to repeat this process.

Otherwise a new bell housing is $300 - $ 400.

Good luck
Cougarman

COUGARMAN is right -Drill out ALL the old damaged metal and have a GOOD welder fill the hole. Just a hint before you do anything take a scribe and mark an X over the existing hole so that you will be able to properly center the new hole. Fill the hole with new metal and then have a machine shop redrill and tap it for you to make sure it is perfectly straight. Helicoil will not work.

I used a heli coil earlier in the year and it worked great. If you do a search on this topic you will be able to read all the help I got.

BT :cool:

Heli coils
 

I haven't used heli coils myself, my only concern
is if they are steel or stainless steel.

If they are steel it will rust away in raw water.
And second, steel and aluminum don't get along.
They react against each other and cause a powdery
type corrosion.

Also you would need to special order fine
thread heli coils.

Back to Tinkerboaters comment, he is right about
marking the center. There is a couple way's to do
it.
First eyeball center and scribe it as Tinkerboater said.
Second that round pad is pretty accurate, so you can measure center of that and not be to far off.

Third drop it off at a Tool & Die shop and have
them do your welding, machine it back flat, and drill and tap it. Tell them the holes need to be
the symmetrical side for side.

I work in Tool shop so I'm furtunate to have
all the machinery at hand. I took machine
cordinates before I started. In the machine
world thay would be ( X, Y, & Z ) cordinates.
I won't go into all that detail, but if you choose
to take it to a true Tooling shop they will
know what you are talking about.

Best of luck

Cougarman

thanks

just got back into town, the helicoil is in 5/16 x 18.

good point about IT not being stainless. hmmmmmmmmm, didn't even think to spec it, was in a hurry

but, mating a stainless helicoil to the alum outdrive i don't think is any different than the bolt mating to the outdrive. I think I will put antiseize on and locktite????????? is that counter productive? the antiseize will put a bearier between the disimilar metals.

now i am wondering about re welding/ etc but I want to be boating this sat to watch the smoke on the water

I guess if I can get a stainless helicoil, it should be no different an interface than the original bolt. I'm stopping into the industrial shop tomorrow to get the kit. I'll ask about the helicoil material.


I'll search about the helicoil
thanks for the advice

Hey Rob, we should really take this issue to our welder buddy in Port Sheldon. He is a GREAT welder. If we bring him the parts, he will do it for free too. How about that price???

You know who I'm talking about don't you? Russ Six. Shop on the dunes? Ring a bell??

Maybe we can do this on Friday after work next week. Then I'll crash at your house and leave for the race with you from there???

Oh and yes, anti-sieze and loctite are counterproductive!! And you call yourself an engineer. Sheesh!!!!!!!!:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Yea what MIKE said -- You can't use locktite and anti-sieze on the same bolt. That bolt is under a LOT of force -- Use the heli coil for temporary to get the boat on the water then next week fix it properly. ( Weld the hole and retap )

if the helicoil is stainless, I feel that is a good fix. if I weld, then I will have to paint too.

do you think I can drill and tap by hand with the drive on the boat? otherwise, Mike whatcha doing tonight? i have never taken off an outdrive.

good idea about seeing Russ though. If I get help taking the outdrive off, I will get it welded, otherwise i will tackle the helicoil myself I guess. There i made a decision:D

It would be hard to hold the drive exactly on center while you drill and tap the bell housing, I would opt to remove the drive then you could re-grease the U joints too. If the bell housing is off center you may damage the bearing race with the drill or tap. The bearing surface is made only out of some nylon plastic. It would be best to remove the bell housing and work on it on a bench but depending on wether you have the exhaust bellows or not it may be more work to take it off than what it is worth. P.S the hinge pin is torqued to 145Ft Lbs and red locktited in.

RP thanks for the torque. I thought through other board posts that the torque was 50 ft-lbs like other outdrive bolts. glad you clarrified. A coworker had another idea to reinforce the bolt. "Drill and tap a smaller bolt into the end of the pivot bolt, attach this small bolt with a fender washer backing up the inside of the outdrive casting, then the pivot bolt will never walk out on it's own." that's a last resort if I cant get this thing to stick.

I've got the red locktite, and even a new bearing/bushing as i did sctatch the other one a little trying to allign the hole for the last bolt installation..
so.........
Do I need to take the oudrive off with the 6 bolts first, or can I get to the bellows and shifter cables etc. by just removing the remaining pivot bolt and trim cylinder attachments and pulling the whole assembly. last thing I want is this thing falling on my big toe and breaking a shifter cable or something stupid on theway down.:rolleyes:

145 would be for th epin only I believe. There is no way a 1/2" bolt will hold 145lbs in an aluminum housing. Main bolts are only 110lbs. Double check your specs.

Make sure you have a stainless helicoil and you will be fine. I did the same thing on my old boat about 4 years ago and helicoiled it and it is still working great. I actually removed the drive first then removed the bell housing and took it to my machine shop just to make sure it was 100% centered. Pretty easy but those bellows can have you swearing when you are putting it back together! And helicoils are very strong. I was told by a very knowledgeable mechanic that a helicoil is actually stronger!!!

thanks blackhawk

waterfoul is goin gto help me take the outdrive off, he's done it before but i like to know what the steps are before i start.

can I take outdrive off at the pivot bolt in question, or do I need to take the outer part off ( the 6 bolt) to get at the bellow, etc in order to remove the (gimbal inner?) to take away and get drilled?

I have our local prototype shop ready to drill for me. hope to remve tonight

any seals that need to be replaced. I'm so nervous after reading all the leak stories on the board. everything is original right now with only 300 hrs and not a drop of water in the outdrives when i changed their fluids 2 weeks ago. call me anal I guess.

details, I need details

thanks for the help

Just to make sure we are talking about a Bravo1 and the hinge pins that allow the drive to be trimed up. Not the pins that allow sid to side motion. Right?

You have to remove the drive unit with the six bolts. (also the trim cylinder retaining nuts too) This other than the bulk is very easy. You could not remove the bell housing without doing this. The shift cable, the driveshaft bellows, the lubrication tube these are all mounted to the bell housing and must be removed prior to the hinge pins.

Seals you may need:

Possibly 3 o-ring seal thease seal the water passage, Oil passage and shifter cable boss. These are visable after removing the drive (6 bolt thing) Two stay on the drive but the oil passage o-ring stays on the bell housing.

You will most likely need a bellows retainer, This is a large aluninum ring that holds in the bellows, It is a press fit you may wreck the old one removing.

You may also need a water line retaining sleve (kind of a nut thing)

There are special tools you need too:

Water line insertion tool
Hinge pin tool (large torx)
Bellows seal driver (nor really needed if you are carefull)

I just went through all this this check out a few links:

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forum/sh...0&pagenumber=2

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forum/sh...threadid=23543

I am almost positive on the 145Lbs torque on the hinge pins. My service manual is in my car and I will check for sure when my wife comes home with the car.

One more note depending on the year the oil supply tube is either removed from a quick disconnect (newer) just under the water hose on the transome assembly behind the engine. Or on older models you remove the hinge pins first and reach behind an unclip the tube right at the bellhousing connection. It is a barbed fitting with a quick snap clamp.

Definatly 145 Ft Lbs on the pins. Here is a picture that may help. If I were you I would call Marc at BAM give him your drive serial number and have him compile a list of seals washers and such. NOTE your shif cable will look different than this (this was from a stern jack)

Well, thanks to Waterfoul it is fixed.

We did it last night in 2.5 hrs.

We did not replace any seals, we put a little silicone on the water and oil seals o rings.

We made a drill guide out of a solid delron cylinder.

After removing the outdrive I released the clamp in the drive bellows at the transom. and removed the nut from the shifter cable holdown. this allowed the gimbal housing to be pulled back easily about 3 " to access the bolt hole/threads. We used the delron guide to drill squarely. then I tapped it by hand using a little gun oil (since I forget the tap oil from work) Tap centered well after a couple finessed attempts. We turned in the Helicoil with red locktite, and then after assembly, turned in the bolt with locktite too. I had a large allen wrench and with my calibrated elbow, attempted 100-150 ft-lbs of torque.

I feel good about the fix except I will watch the water in the outdrive oil and maybe remove the drive bellows clamp later in the season and check for water in thier as well. I keep the boat at homeout of the water.


We also lubed the drive shaft u joints. they moved very freely but had just a touch of surface rust on them???????? 88 boat? I think then looked ok. and moved very freely with no chuck


a couple things we learned

1) if you put a piece of metal flashing betwen the housing and the bellows, you can drill and tap safely without cutting into the bellows, - worked good

2) two men and a truck pulling hard enough will eventually tear the speedo tube and the drive COMES RIGHT OFF AT THAT POINT:rolleyes:

I JUST FIXED AND HAD OPERATING MY SPEEDO FOR THE FIRST TIME LAST WEEK!! now I need a new hose, oh well


3) Working on my boat in my new dry, well lit, warm pole barn with a good friend, some music cranking, and a couple beers brought out by my lovely wife was actually fun. If broken boats is all that troubles me in life. I think I have it pretty good:)

thanks Mike (waterfoul) for all your help. and others for all the advise.

now as long as it doesn't leek:confused:

Good job, Thanks for the update and the thread. I pulled all my pins last night and re-locktited them with red since I had foolishy used blue when I put them together. My 89 book said 90-100 ft/lbs but at that point its the same thing. Wait till you see what the speedometer hose costs. ;) I did the same thing and ended up just pluggin it. Boat goes faster that way anyway. ;)

I have twins, so all I really need to do is find that stinkin hose from the other drive on the inside of the transom and switch the interior speed'o hose to it, ( and plug the other one)

It was great for a week actually having my speedo not say 22 mph and having new passengers constantly say " are we only going 22mph it seems so much faster???"

meanwhile i'm thinking............NO!!!! I SPENT $$$$ ON THIS BOAT AND $$ ON FUEL TO IMPRESS YOU AND IF YOU COULD READ MY GPS IT SAYS 64.99 MPH NOT 22!!!!!!

the speedo was actually "happy" so now I gotta get the other one working.:D