www.iFourWinns.com

Thanks to everyone on the forum & the Seloc manual , I felt comfortable tackling some extensive maintenance in this my first year of boat ownership. Thought I would share my notes with tool listing in-case it helps anyone in the future. Trim indication on dash was not working when I bought the boat in August. (2000 Horizon 180 LS, 4.3 GL/SX 260 hours)

Drain Drive oil
Smooth green fluid. Not metal flakes. Milky white after settling for 4 days.


Remove Lower Unit
Remove cable retainer. (Replaced bolt with hex head. Turn to port use 1/4 drive and extension.
Trimmed drive to ensure "flat" on front and rear of home made drive stand.
Removed 6 bolts. 3/8 drive, univeral joint and long extention. Worked fine.
Held trim cyliners with white bunge cord. Worked well.

Inspection upon removal
Water seal (Gasket). Area around seal cruddy.
Water in lower portion of U-joint bellow.
Small Tear in upper back portion of U-joint bellow (1 O clock)
Exhaust bellow OK
Gimble bearing moved smoothly
U-joints all move smoothly and were firm. ( Did not have zerk fittings, perma seal type)
Alignment checked with e-bay alignment tool. Easily inserted and spun gimble bearing very easily.

Removed Pivot housing to replace bellows
Remove water tube plastic nut with Channel locks (1 3/8 socket with 3/4-1/2 adapter)
Remove U-joint bellow lip
Remove Snap ring on exhaust bellow. (Snap ring pliers with Heavy pins)
Remove trim sender
Remove pivot housing with 1/2 Hex socket drive (Granger) & breaker bar
Removed ground stap on upper port section.

Removed bellows
Removed ground straps and u-joint & exhaust bellow.


Replaced trim Sender and then removed
Pulled on trim sender wires. Wires pulled ot of grommet. (BAD)
Pushed grommet into boat due to clip on other side.
Replaced trim sender and fed wires through transom. Pressed grommet in firm. (greased)
Located connector on Rear, upper, port side of engine. Removed clip
Cut wires and connected new leads with crimp type connectors
Checked resistance and rotated sender to 10-12 ohms.
Turned on key, Gauge still read UP. Did not solve problem.
(Checked old sensor and it also would set to 10-12 ohms….NOT BROKEN)
New style sender interfered with gimble ring once drive was turned staright versus hard to port.

Tested and re-installed old sender
Removed new sensor
Crimped new wire onto old sender leads. Filled connector with Silcon and taped.
Fed wires through transom. Wire wrapped old sender lead to hyraulic lines and gimble bearing grease line and attempted to filled hole from outside with silicone.
(TBD run wire directly to instrument panel gauge, May be gauge issue?????? )

Installed new U-joint and exhaust bellows
Added new marine "Bellow exhaust adhesive" and reinstalled ground clip and bellows

Re-install pivot housing
Greased Gimble bearing with Merc Gimble and U-joint grease using small gun and 90 degree adapter (Granger)
Old grease and little water exited the bearing. Rotated very smoothly
Cleaned water seal area with carb cleaner, brush and sand paper
Cleaned water tube o-ring pocket with carb cleaner and brush.
Installed pivot housing and torqued to spec. 1/2 Hex socket drive (Granger)
Installed water tube nut and torqued to spec (1 3/8 socket with 3/4-1/2 adapter)
Installed u-joint bellow and seated in groove
Installed exhaust bellow and installed snap ring.
Installed sender.
Installed new gasket ( water seal) with 4 dots of adhesive
(kit was seal and 2 o-rings for spline $5)

Install lower unit
Cleaned mating surface for water seal (gasket) Carb cleaner, brush, sand paper….
Installed new O-rings, coated with motor oil
Coated spline with Merc spline grease.
Coated U-joints all over with Triple guard grease.
Installed drive.
Torqued nut in proper sequence to 25 ft-lbs, then in sequence to 50 ft. lbs.
Connected shift cable to shift mechanism
Retained shift cable @ NOTCH (3rd try. Did not see notch before stipping off bolt..long story had to re-pull drive to remove stripped bolt)
Filled with Oil

Winterization
Greased steering shaft with triple guard
Stabilized fuel and topped off tank.
Pumped out 7/8 gallon oil
Replaced filter. Filled new filter 2/3 with oil (Volvo synthetic)
Filled oil. Took 4.2 Quarts
Replaced fuel filter. Filled 2/3 with Stabilzer.
Fogged engine until stall through carburator
Added plastic above carburator for moisture
Removed spark plugs and sprayed fogging oil into cylinder. Plugs looked good.
Drain block (1) and manifold (1) port side using 9/16 racket box end wrench
Drain block (1) and manifold (1) starboard side using 9/16 racket box end wrench
Drain manifold nut near thermostat using open end 9/16 and bar. Rotate from front to loosen then 11/16 socket
Removed hoses. (3 at Thermostat, large one down low and both at impellar.
Cranked for 2 seconds to clear impellar.
Added -100 antifreeze down each hose at thermostat until present at outdrive exit.

Great run-down Matt. Sounds complex..! At least I know know what is in front of me if I decide to do it myself.

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Alec

2006 Horizon 190
VP 4.3GL/SX, Sunsport

Wow, that is an awesome write-up!! Thanks for taking the time to share all that info, that will help me out a lot.

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- John

1998 Four Winns Horizon QX
OMC 4.3L GL, Cobra SX

Excellent write-up, you did a lot of work for a first attempt! To this I might add pressure and vaccum testing the drive to make sure there are no leaks after the work done, since you had noted milky gear oil.
And also it also shows the value of pulling the drive each year, if not done, the water in the bellows would have caused an eventual failure, with corrison in both the gimble bearing and ujoints. Did the gimble rotate by hand smoothly?

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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

Yes the gimble rotated very smoothly and I could not feel the balls of the bearing. I am not sure what type of gear oil was used the drive before but I replaced with VP synthetic.

Just wondering what e-bay alignment tool you purchased?

There are a few vendors and wanted to know what you thought of the tool you bought from a quality perspective.

Steve

I ordered this one from a seller in Cleveland Ohio. Came in 2 days.

My total was $55 with shipping but it looks 10 less now. Worked great and came with better instructions then the manual.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/_Boat-Pa ... 06.c0.m245