cosborn
Active member
Hello . Had an unfortunate issue pop up with my old outboard, and need a quick confirmation in what I believe I need to do. This is my first time inside the lower unit of any motor, so want to make sure I’m doing it right. The old dog cradle got mangled and needs replacing, but I think it bent the Y shaped gear shifter arm thingy (technical term, I know) that sits on the outside of the cradle.
The tabs on the outside of this should fit snugly inside the cradle notches, correct? I need to bend this thing a bit? The braking cradle jamming in there likely spread those two arms out?
I know it’s the right size cradle, compared it to the pieces of the old one. New one fits perfectly around the gear shaft.
This is the old one lol:
For those that are wondering how this happened… yes, I had the gear case filled with plenty of oil at the beginning of the season.
From what I can tell, the previous owner had an issue down there before and had one of the case bolts strip out. Looks like one of those expander coils you can put around a bolt to squeeze it back in there were used, instead of properly boring out new threads one size up. Well, that must have rusted out finally, and that bolt became loose. The gear case opened up a hair in that spot. Enough that all the oil I had leaked out and it filled with water. Horrible noise and a grinding halt and I was limping back up river with a trolling motor on a depleting battery.
I am extremely lucky that it was just this small piece that blew up, and that I found some on eBay. But I think the grinding bent those two arms out. Just need to make sure I am correct to assume that I need to bend those two arms together more before committing to doing it.
Thanks!
The tabs on the outside of this should fit snugly inside the cradle notches, correct? I need to bend this thing a bit? The braking cradle jamming in there likely spread those two arms out?
I know it’s the right size cradle, compared it to the pieces of the old one. New one fits perfectly around the gear shaft.
This is the old one lol:
For those that are wondering how this happened… yes, I had the gear case filled with plenty of oil at the beginning of the season.
From what I can tell, the previous owner had an issue down there before and had one of the case bolts strip out. Looks like one of those expander coils you can put around a bolt to squeeze it back in there were used, instead of properly boring out new threads one size up. Well, that must have rusted out finally, and that bolt became loose. The gear case opened up a hair in that spot. Enough that all the oil I had leaked out and it filled with water. Horrible noise and a grinding halt and I was limping back up river with a trolling motor on a depleting battery.
I am extremely lucky that it was just this small piece that blew up, and that I found some on eBay. But I think the grinding bent those two arms out. Just need to make sure I am correct to assume that I need to bend those two arms together more before committing to doing it.
Thanks!