alpha 1 gear lube bottle

[87cc]

My mechanic was telling me that I should install a bottle for my drive. He says they always start leaking. I'm wondering where do they leak at ? If they leak oil out, wouldn't they leak water in ?

 

[87cc]

Surprises me that nobody knows anything about this.

 

[SCORPIO]

There is or was a kit available from Merc to retrofit the older Alphas with gear lube bottles. I've been thinking about doing this to mine. Don't know that they all leak, they souldn't, but if they did and you had a bottle, you'd be able to see the drop in level and add some to prevent burning up an outdrive.

 

[Daddubo]

I think the idea is the bottle is higher than the out drive so you would have some positive pressure . I have one on mine after I filled the out drive I connected the hose (it goes in to the top plug hole) after my first time out it dropped about half way down filling the void at the top.

 

[Jimmy Buoy]

I had one leak on a previous boat with a Bravo I Drive. What caused the leaks was the bottom of the bottle itself had developed small cracks around the fluid supply fitting. The bottle had a hole drilled in which a fitting was placed with a rubber seal on each side of the plastic bottle material.

Never did replace with another Merc bottle since it was expensive and came with all the fittings/alarm/float etc... Simply used a camping water bottle and drilled an identical hole on the bottom and swapped all the fittings and stuff. Never had another problem with leaks.

It is a good safeguard to have this system especially if your prop shaft seal begins to leak!

 

[Alibuma]

http://www.diversified-marine.biz/c..._Gear_Oil_Reservoir_Kit._Replaces_PN_69622A_7

My Alpha 1 Gen 1 was leaking between the upper and lower halves. I ordred a new outdrive that had a three year warranty. Near the end of the warranty, I'll be adding one of these kits.