Basically I took my boat to the dealer last year because my prop shaft seal was leaking like crazy, they charged me for the labor to adjust it and I went on my way. The next time I put the boat in the water the seal does not leak a drop, bad thing for a gland seal, it should drip once every 10 seconds. I drive about a half mile across the water and check it again, the seal housing is hot as hell and still doesn't leak all day long. I take a closer look and see what the dealer did to my housing and decide it's time to fix this myself. I e-mail Bob @ Malibu about the dripless seal that they use on the BU's and come to find out it will work on the Axis. As a matter of fact all the 2012 Axis have them standard I believe. I know the Vandall at the local boat show had one on it, I took it apart and looked. So for now this guide will be applicable to the 2009-2011 model Axis. So if you guys have a problem with leaks, I know they drive me crazy, here is what you can do to remedy the situation. I will put a description with each picture and what I did. The seal from Malibu was around 150$ and it took me around 4hrs to install and that was working very slow and cautious so I didn't mess anything up. I'm confident I could do the second one in 2 or less easy. The dealer wanted 900$ to do this job with the labor for the first adjustment, I said no and had them mail the seal kit to me so I could have it done later. lol
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File comment: Start here, 90% of changing the seal will be done in this opening, If you have a prop puller now would be a good time to take it off, the shaft hangs down a little when you uncouple it from the flange, If not put a few towels between the prop and bottom of the boat so you don't scratch anything
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File comment: This is the v-drive unit, there are 7 bolts and 1 nut that you will have to remove, 2 of the bolts are on the bottom and can't be seen, feel for them and you will find them, make sure you remove all of them, when they are out the unit will easily slide away from the transmission, this unit also has 2 large hoses going to it, one from the water intake grate under the boat, the other goes to the sea water pump, I couldn't get the one on the right off the v-drive so I removed it from the impeller housing and took the whole hose off with the unit. There are four nuts and bolts attached to the prop shaft flange, remove these, I don't have a before picture but i'll point them out in the after picture
IMG_0628.jpg [ 68.51 KiB | Viewed 99978 times ]
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File comment: this is the housing for my original seal, you can see where the dealer got very rough with the jamb nut and used a freaking pair of channel lock pliers and a hammer and chisel on it instead of the proper tool.
IMG_1577.jpg [ 33.9 KiB | Viewed 99978 times ]
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Last edited by Walter on Mon Feb 27, 2012 10:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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