www.iFourWinns.com

Greetings

I am considering servicing (overhauling) the Volvo SX Outdrives on my V288. I am mechanically proficient and have a fully equiped workshop at home. I have never removed or worked on outdrives.

I have the manuals for the outdrives, and on paper it all looks pretty staight forward. Experience has taught me that it's never simple and there is always some or another unforeseen anomaly that the books don't address.

I would appreciate any advise on this topic, any tips that will help me get things done more efficiently.

I intend to remove the outdrives place them on wooden frames for transportation. Once the outdrives have been removed, I want to tow the boat to its underground winter storage. Is it safe/sensible to tow the boat once the outdrives have been removed or do I risk damaging something? Towing tips in this configuration will be appreciated.

I have painted the outdrives after every season, and intend to do so again. I have a good procedure and the correct products to clean, prepare and paint the outdrives.

I will use a motorcycle jack with suitable blocks to lift and manouver the outdrives from the boat.

Thank you.

CGC

When you say "overhauling", whatcha mean? Typical servicing is change drive oil (checking for milkyness/water in oil), lube U-Joints (check for sloppiness or rust), and lube gimbal bearing. Anything more, like input shaft seal, changing U-Joints, or gear work gets a bit more involved. Either way, removing VP SX drives is easy, takes about 20-30 min per drive and only involves a bit of profanity and a little blood. I created a thread with a step by step breakdown with pictures. But, the pic hosting site I was using went under and all my pics got deleted, sooooo here is that thread without the pics. You should be able to follow the narrative (I hope): http://www.smwebhead.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=10459

Towing without the drives is fine, just make sure to support the trim pistons (don't let em hang down). I use a couple of bungee cords to hold them up on mine.

_________________

1996 205 Sundowner DLX
5.0FL Volvo SX Cobra
Tow Veh: 2012 Nissan Frontier Pro-4X

Thanks. Blood and profanity seem to go hand in hand with boat maintenance unless you're a 3 ft tall contortionist, but that would come with it's own set of challenges not related to boating. I appreciate the step by step guide. I hope that the drives are in reasonable condition and plan to do all the basic service items. The bearing carriers are pretty corroded and I suspect that I might need to replace them. In fact I already have two new ones in my workshop. I think that this task will be associated with additional profanity, perhaps some in a foreign language, and I'll likely need a blood transfusion once I'm done. I have overhauled several car and motorcycle engines as well as gearboxes in my life, I am not a mechanic by profession, I just enjoy fixing stuff. However I also know that certain things should be left to professionals, however these days the cost of hiring a professional anything is also prohibitive.

If you find a female 3' tall contortionist, let me know her contact info please.

As for the drives, there will be specialty tools required. Also, a decent manual such as a Seloc will be required. Other than this, as long as you do it "by the book", you'll be fine. Check and adjust all clearances and measurements. It's not much different than setting up a transmission and a differential.

You'll be the first to know. I might not share this rare find, but I will brag a little. She'll spend most of her time on my boat and occasionally repair something

I did get the Seloc manual, it seems pretty comprehensive.

Take care.

I would review your seloc manual for special tools needed for the procedure(s) you want to do. Getting into the lower unit will almost definitely require some special tools. You may be able to find them on eBay. You may also need some of the shims shown in the procedure for setting proper gear clearances.

Towing without the drives is fine. As said before, the trim cylinders must be tied up. Your tongue weight will also increase, but only by about 30 pounds per drive. And stuff rags, or tape plastic to prevent road grime from getting into your gimbal bearings.

_________________

"Knot Easy" 2000 Horizon 240 Volvo 5.7GS /SX
tow: 2017 Honda PILOT EXL-AWD
prev. boats:
'87 Chaparral 198CXL 4.3 OMC Cobra
'69 Jetstar 16ft Ski Boat, 115hp Yamaha
'68 Aluminum Jon Boat, 3hp Sears
'64 Water Wings

Thank you for all the good advice.

you might want to get one of these to make the removal easier, some years back I made a wood stand with adjustable casters and then a couple of years ago upgraded to this one.....

https://www.dropbox.com/s/uddmy0ske6lyg ... r.JPG?dl=0

This is an OMC Cobra but the Volvo SX general design is similar. The problems you can run into are:
1) it won't come off the boat, this happens when the prev owners didn't service it regularly. Either the bellows leaked and the driveshaft corroded into the coupler, or on the Volvo, you can have aluminum corrosion between the drive and pivot housing because they do not use a gasket there like OMC and Merc do
2) if you need to split the upper and lower, it can be hell on wheels to get em apart, if it has not been done in a few years esp if the boat was left in the water. What I did for this problem, was to use a piece of all thread in place of the trim ram rod, and 2 1/2" bolts in the lower mounting holes on the front of the lower unit. Put one scissors jack under the bolts and used one on each side of the all thread. Jacked each one evenly and it pops off nice n easy, no breaking stuff. I had to do this to clean out the water passage, had barnacles growing in there.

_________________
88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II