Extremely Loud Squeal After SE106 Instal

[rich6490]

Installed my SE106 drive today, had it hooked up to the muffs checking the shifts. Worked great for a couple minutes, shifted and everything. Then an extremely loud squealing noise came from what I believe to be the engine compartment. Two contributing factors which I haven't seriously looked into yet...

1. It started to pour and I had the engine hatch up, could it possibly just be the belt got wet and was slipping badly.

2. The drive went in fairly snug, while after wrestling with it a while to get the last 1/3 of the splines to feed in, it wasn't extremely difficult to do.

I'm not new to engines/ mechanic work but am new to boats so bear with me!

Thanks for any assistance.

Zach

[admin]

I would say you nailed it with your first idea. A slightly loose belt and some water will make a heckuva squeal. Try it after it dries, and you may also want to tighten it some.

Tech Support

[rich6490]

Lets hope so, I'll have to check it out after work. After pouring so much money into the thing I have nightmares of a smoked coupler... Lets hope not!

-One other peice of information, the gimbal was new two seasons ago, along with the whole engine (357 Mercruiser Magnum), while I realize that a basically new engine/coupler, along with gimbal, and driveshaft will make things very tight going in, should I try and pull the drive off and realign it anyway?

Thanks for the input!

[admin]

Changing the drive doesn't change the engine alignment, however it is recommended to check the alignment anytime the drive is off.

Tech Support

[rich6490]

-First off the "squealing" noted earlier when I actually looked into it, (when it was day time and not pouring) was just the water pump pulley locked up. No big deal problem fixed. Tried the boat out yesterday yeilding the following results...


We figured that a 22 year old spline probably has a little more wear/give than the brand new SEI one. The drive goes smooth (10x smoother than the old one) but there is a little bit of vibration coming from what seems to be the alignment of the engine being off. You can hear a loud roller (metal on metal, almost like a train going down tracks, with some pulsating at mid rpm's) bearing noise vibrating throughout the boat when running.

I know people mention SEI drives can be loud when there broken in, but I'm assuming this is excess pressure on the gimbal from the misalignment? (I wish I noted engine vibration before installing the drive)

I planned on re aligning the engine in the next day or two.

Any other input?

[admin]

A bad gimbal bearing, and possibly bad alignment could cause that noise. When you get the drive off, make sure to turn the gimbal bearing by hand to see how it feels. and bumps at all, just replace it. As far as alignment goes, make sure you are using an alignment tool, not just an old shaft.

Tech Support

[rich6490]

Gimbal is new as of a year ago, I'll re-check it when I do the alignment either tonight or tommorow.

Thanks,

Zach