zincs if you have them, any hoses that are old, check all the wiring for wear or corroded ends, spray the whole thing with corrosion X before you put it back in.

Maybe I would be better off having the local shop do this. I can have the drive pulled of course. What's the typical man hours to get the bearing out with the drive already pulled? If i buy the tool and change the bearing, i'll probably never have to do it again on this boat.

Don't let all this talk discourage you from doing this. Although its all great advice, to much info can be well, just to much info. Pull the drive, rent a 5lb puller from advance, pull the bearing, check all the bellows, knock the new bearing in, check the alignment with an alignment bar, if all checks out, put the drive back on. Grease the bearing if its the greaseable one. This is a 2 hour job tops. It can be done quicker as long as you get the bearing out easily.

If you decide on buying a puller or Alignment tool or any others let me know. I give fellow Osoer's 10% off if I invoice you straight thru Paypal. You can buy a bearing puller for $90.00 from me.
My Ebay store is in my signature.

what signature?

This should be showing up under my post
http://stores.ebay.com/Whoya-Products

Saw that on Ebay .have you got any better pictures of the working parts .Picture in ad is dark.

With the drive already off it takes less than 5 minutes to change a gimbal bearing. Do it yourself.

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Just pulled my original bearing out to replace as a precaution and it was much easier than I expected. Borrowed (free) a 5lb puller from local auto parts store and popped it right out. Bought the replacement bearing, Sierra part #18-2100, but when I took the drive and both new and old bearing to a Merc. mechanic to get checked out I was told the Sierra bearing was a different thickness on the inner part where shaft rides and wouldn't recommend using it. I saw the mechanic measure it and it is different but I'm not sure if that will make any difference or cause a problem. It doesn't sound like anyone on here has had a problem using this same Sierra bearing as a replacement. Anyone have any insight on this? I've tried to research online and cross reference the part numbers and it does appear that the #18-2100 is a direct replacement for the older bravo's, pre '98, but there's no direct cross reference for the newer drives. Mine is a 2001 Bravo 1.