Big rubber seals

[Tupaia]

Major overhaul.... looking at the big rubber seals on sail drives according to the notes these should be replaced every 7 years.

Comments?

Not a particularly expensive item but looks like a lot of work to fit. How easy? Anybody done this?

[HeinSdL]

I think this is a recurring discussion and from what I have seen there seems to be a bit of a consensus:
- 7 years is rather short
- there weren't many (if any) examples of seal failures due to age
- replaced seals come out looking as new

Having said that, I recently replaced the seals of my SD40 and the hardest thing I found was managing the weight of the engine which needs to be moved forward. So I spent some time figuring out how to do this in a controlled way and you may find a photo on my profile which vaguely shows the frame lifting the 4JH3E forward suspended on two parallel tracks.

I think my seals were from the time the boat was built so 18 years old, and they were completely fine.

When reassembling, the main difficulty was to get the spline of the saildrive input shaft to engage into the flywheel. Otherwise quite doable.

[Orion Jim]

Buddy did his after 15 years. Since it is a perishable item and the manufacturers recommendations are that it be changed after seven years I’ll bet your insurance would balk at a payout if it was determined it’s failure led to a loss claim had it had not been changed out per the recommendations.
There are YouTube videos out there and the process itself is not fun but relatively easy for two people.

[HeinSdL]

Originally Posted by HeinSdL

I think this is a recurring discussion and from what I have seen there seems to be a bit of a consensus:
- 7 years is rather short
- there weren't many (if any) examples of seal failures due to age
- replaced seals come out looking as new

Having said that, I recently replaced the seals of my SD40 and the hardest thing I found was managing the weight of the engine which needs to be moved forward. So I spent some time figuring out how to do this in a controlled way and you may find a photo on my profile which vaguely shows the frame lifting the 4JH3E forward suspended on two parallel tracks.

I think my seals were from the time the boat was built so 18 years old, and they were completely fine.

When reassembling, the main difficulty was to get the spline of the saildrive input shaft to engage into the flywheel. Otherwise quite doable.

Actually, correction here. I also needed to replace the oil seal on the saildrive input shaft so had to separate saildrive and engine. If you only want to replace the seals then can keep saildrive and engine together.