I have 2008 Merc B3 Seacore drives with the 496 HO engines in my Formula SS350 and I recently had my marina replace a loud gimbal bearing. I studied the drive and found that the grease fitting, which still has anifouling paint on it from when new, seems to me has never been greased. I brought this up to the marina and said that my guess would be it failed due to lack of proper maintenance. They kind of got snotty with me a claim that even though there is a grease fitting, they do not get greased because they are permanently lubricated.

Could this be true? Why would there still be a fitting?

Yes, the newer bearings are perma-lube. Not sure when they changed. Do you have the old bearing? New style bearing has a white dot. It is entirely possible that the casting has a grease fitting event though it has new bearing.

That uses the same bearing as my TRS uses in the trans tailstock. They changed to the sealed type bearing. When you buy a new one a plug comes with it to replace the grease fitting if you wish to. I quess so no one tries to put grease into it.

Wow, I am not crazy about that. In all the years I have had Mercruiser outdrives, I have never had a gimbal bearing go bad, but I also religiously greased them.

Three year old boat with 70 hours and the bearing goes is

Just wait ,the next step will be whem mercruiser makes the old style lubeable bearing NLA then doubles the price on the new one!

I think they are NLA unless someone has one in stock somewhere.. The new sealed ones use the same part number as the old style.

I think they recommend that you check engine alignment every year to preserve the coupler and gimble bearing.

Omc bearings are the same as the older merc bearings and are greaseable. They are also $20 cheaper

As long as there is no water entering into the bellows area.... AND, you pull the drive to inspect alignment and re-grease the splines, the gimbal bearing should last along time. Ditto for non-greasable u-joints too!!! BTW, theer is no reason.... to have a non-greasable bearing installed in the hsg but a zerc fitting on the outside of the transom bracket... that's just lazy people....