new outdrive woes - help

[boelkhtr]

I just got back from NewPort, hummm I put 7 hours on my new Outdrive.

About 6 hours in I was giving 3/4 power taking the boat up on plane, and when pushing just a little across the bar i got brown smoke/steam comming up past the swim step. It did not look like oil smoke, and i still had more throtle, rps were 3800 and then lost plane. Set for a few mins, in and out of gear, start slow and back up on plane, push it a little and bog down and off plane.

took it very easy for 30 mins and then took her up to plane again, same result... hummmm

Does any one have any idea? :passout:
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[Herring Impaired]

Slip hub on prop?

Gear oil in Outdrive? Dry perhaps?

Was the engine overheating?

[fishkisser]

:yeahthat:

[boelkhtr]

The prop is good, the engine does not overhead, almost seems like there is a govenor on the engine. Their better be oil in the out drive, i will take it in today and get it changed, look for metal shards on the screw with the maginate.

Seems strange the engine has plenty of power up to 3800 rpm's, the engine is smooth running at rpm, sounds good the boat goes to pushing water like i threw over a sea anchor, the speed goes from 24 knots to 10 but the engine rpms go to 3000 or so.

Herman

[fishkisser]

Oh ... That does not sound good ... it could be the gears and clutch dogs in the lower unit but the smoke does not make any sense ...
What stern drive is it exactly ?

[boelkhtr]

sei new upper and lower sent from the factory.

[Herring Impaired]

:shrug: Not sure what that means....

[Orca]

SEI (Sterndrive Engineering Inc.) builds replacement Mercruiser Alpha drives, and Bravo 1 lower halves.

The boat looks newer, so I suspect it now has an Alpha 1 Gen II from SEI on it.

Here's the good news for the drive - "SEI's stern drives come standard with a three-year, fault-free warranty. This means that the unit is covered for any failure that requires the stern drive to be repaired or replaced. Run it without lubrication, crash into a stump, suck up some fishing line, it does not matter, the SEI stern drive is always covered." Great, except for the labor required to pull it and reinstall.

[StickFish]

Sounds like the same problems HiTekRdNek had after running his boat at Odell - turned out to be a carbon build up problem. Steam in the exhaust sounds like water to me - both problems he's had - fuel water separator gets plugged up - water gets into injection engine runs bad.

Brown smoke poor ignition. I'd check your fuel filters especially you water separator or at least the fuel in your fuel pump filter

[boelkhtr]

Pilar's found it, see below.

Boelkhtr .. If the drive locked up when it broke and the engine kept running you may have broken the coupler on the back of the motor. This is a rubber filled coupler that bolts to your flywheel and has a splined socket in the center to turn the outdrive input shaft.

It is designed to *break* if you lock up the drive or hit a log while the engine is running. Better to break the coupler than the much more expensive crank shaft or drive shaft. Once broken it might even turn the drive at low loads. But it will definitely slip under load. Be careful about running the engine until you get this looked at. On some boats the outdrive MUST turn to get cooling water to the motor. Also when you change out the drive it is very important to check the alignment of the engine to the drive. I have the tool to do this if you want to borrow it. This alignment must be perfect or the drive will wear quickly. I would be checking this especially since the old drive died on the top end which is directly affected by the engine-drive alignment.

You can see the coupler if you remove the drive and bore scope the hole in the gimbal housing. Or you can pull the gimbal bearing after you take the drive off the boat and see it with a flashlight. You'll either see a greasy spline which you can wipe off to find clean rubber and a good spline.. all good or a bunch of melted rubber oozing out around the spline. Call Seaway Marine for a new coupler and locknut set if it is melted.

Brown smoke ... burning rubber from the coupler?

BTW this is a pull the engine deal to replace the coupler.

[fishkisser]

Well ... Did Pilar win the gold star ???

[boelkhtr]

if i had one to give him i would,

Instead he just made me cry...

I pulled the motor today, and alas, the shop mech helped me out with the clean up part will be here tomorrow.

what fun, checking the bilg pumps and all the stuff i cant get to with the motor in. damn that thing is big when out of the boat. I wonder how I can aforde to feed it. :-)


"TUNA" who would of thought. I must get some councleing!

[fishkisser]

Ahhh ... The joys of owning a hole in the water ... Hope your up and running in no time ...
Barney:wave: