Oil leak

[jimmyb]

So I have a XR drive in my conquest deck that I'm trying to figure out the source of the oil leak. So to map it out since I don't have pics (boats in storage at the river), you have the two cables coming from the shift lever back to the transom that goes to the shift fork. From the shift fork, the arm pivots depending on if you are in forward or reverse either pushing or pulling the single cable that goes to the outdrive. Well that cable will drip drive oil on the fork side. Its a minor leak that is more of a nuisance than anything. Can someone help point to the bad seal, and is this something easily fixed?

 

[Fun Times]

Hi, this sounds like one of your upper drive unit shift shaft bushing seals may be leaking. While this can be done without having special tools as seen in the first video posted below, there are special tools made by Mercruiser to do the job easier/better without it being a hack job like seen in the video. But the two videos will help give you a good understanding of what's going to be needed done to solve the oil leak.

Here you'll see the guy teardown the drive unit components, [video=youtube;QIB6FpEmziM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIB6FpEmziM[/video]

And here/below starting at the 1:34 minute mark, you'll see him starting to install a new shift bushing seal assembly, [video=youtube;T0EejJVqkms]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0EejJVqkms[/video]

Between the videos and service manual and depending on if you're a do it yourselfer when it comes to your boat repairs, it's possible to do this repair at home though for some, it might just be so much easier/better to allow a Mercruiser marine repair shop to handle this type of repair mostly depended on ones mechanical skills.

If you're going to repair it yourself and would like some help with exact parts look up, feel free to post your stern drive serial number...To get an idea, you're looking at items 8, both 9's and 10 being an potential issue, http://www.mercruiserparts.com/bam/subassembly/30990/10270/130

Hope this helps, good luck.:thumbsup

 

[jimmyb]

Wow, thanks for the info. Ya this may be a job Ill probably pay someone to do since I really need to pick my battles with the 10 other projects I'm juggling.