A girl at our marina has a 1978 Scarab with TRS drives. Both of the drives are considerably rotted. They have been patched with some west system in the past just in front of the prop. Well last week the west system fell off one drive an revealed a huge gaping hole on the side of the drive. The hole is on the right side just in front of the prop, it's about 4" high and 2 1/2 " long. Its a dam big hole.

Well my question is how much structural integrity is the on this portion of the drive? And is is it safe to West system it up again?

In my opinion I would never try to epoxy anything like this. But our marina mechanic suggested to epoxy it shut like before and she will be good for a while............

Is it me or dose that sound F***ing crazy.

Keep in mind this is the same mechanic that installed a motor in her boat and had the # 4 & 6 plug wires crossed and did not have the ability to notice a motor running on 6 cylinders. It ran like this for at least 10 hours.

The reason i am asking is because her drives have been patched for many years and the are yet to fail. She really don't want to spend thousands on getting lowers if she can patch them again and get through the season. Because of the age and condition of the boat it just ain't worth it to buy new lowers. but if anyone has any leads on one or a set of trs lowers that are in running condition but look like S**t as long as the price is right she is interested.

Boy, that is a tough call. I can't imagine anyone saying to just goop it up again and all will be well. And the other thing is: you don't just bolt on another TRS lower. Bearing preloads and shimming is a factor of upper and lower bolted together and torqued to spec. This needs to be done by someone with the proper tools and experience and unless you find a very charitable someone with these qualifications, It won't be cheap. Now if you are not running any exhaust through the outdrive then you could probably sandblast and load it up with Devcon or J/B Weld, smooth it off and run it till it blows. There will probably be NO fix at that point. Can you spell "Konrad"?? --- jp

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Maybe it can be welded. Drain the oil and when the case gets welded it should be filled with water to prevent damage from heat. Bring it to a good boatyard that has experience in Heliarc (TIG) welding. BBB