posted 11-24-2005 08:23 PM ET (US)        

Lisa at Turbojet Marine Products was especially helpful in understanding the parts necessary to replace all the seals in the impeller housing. My inquiry to TMP came back with a PDF file showing the exploded parts diagram for the jet unit with a #1 next to all the seals included in the "Impeller Housing Seal Kit". If you've got a few seals to replace on your housing, you might as well go with the kit which contains all the seals on the impeller housing assembly for about $40. To remove the impeller from the impeller shaft, OMC says to use a special splined tool which I didn't have. Instead, I used an air driven impact wrench. By pressing down on the impeller assembly, forcing the impeller against a piece of plywood, I was able to spin the bearing shaft free from the impeller that it threads into. I was able to drive the bearing shaft out of the rear bearing with a block of wood. The front seal in my housing looked horribly rusty. At first glance, I thought I was looking at very rusty bearing assembly and not the seal. Fortunately, the seal pulled out without too much trouble, as did the second seal. My front bearing had more play in it than I really liked, so I determined I needed to remove the bearings. Fortunately, the two bearings have different internal diameters, so you can slip something through one bearing to pull the other out. Not having the OMC recommended bearing puller, I ended up with a piece of angle material which straddled the entire front opening of the impeller assembly. A hole drilled in the middle of the angle provided a location to install a 5/16" x 4" bolt which acted as my tensioning device creating a make shift puller. Behind the bearing, I had two washers ground down slightly so they would slip through the rear bearing and a nut. As I tensioned the bolt to pull the bearing out, my metal angle material began to bend. (Not Good!) So, I found a different way to hold the housing and applied a few swift hits with a hammer to a socket I had running down to the rear side of the bearing I was trying to remove. A few good hits with a hammer combined with the tension from the bolt on my make shift puller served to get the bearing moving. I continued tightening up the tensioning bolt and using the hammer and socket to provide bursts of motivation to get the front bearing out of the impeller housing. Once the front bearing was out, the rear bearing was more accessible. So, I repeated my previous method of using a bolt for tension and hitting a socket on an extension to help persuade the rear bearing out. Now that they are both out, they will both be replaced with new bearings from TMP.(rear bearing $30, front bearing $20).

posted 12-21-2005 09:53 PM ET (US)            

You know it's time to disassemble the impeller assembly when atleast 1/3 of the paint is flaking off. As I looked down the nozzle, I noticed that all the paint was missing from the tail cone for the impeller bearing case. Elsewhere on my impeller housing, the paint was flaking and in need of some R&R. So, I took some time this fall to do just that.

Beginning by removing the steering cable using a pair of needle nosed pliers to remove the cotter pin, I removed the shifting cable from the impeller assembly using a 6mm allen wrench. Fortunately, the last person to install the shift cable used blue loctite (nut lock, medium duty) on the threads of the allen bolt. That came off easily. Once the shift and steering cables are removed, the impeller assembly simply slides off into your hands to carry back to the garage.

Once in the garage, I continued to remove pieces and parts working my way in from the shift bucket toward the impeller. The allen screws all came out with relative ease considering they are stainless into aluminum. As I mentioned, the previous person to assemble the unit used blue loctite on the threads, which appears to work well to keep the salt water out of them. As I disassembled the moving parts, I noted that the various bushings which allow things to pivot were looking old and tired, so I made a point to order replacements ($6+ per bushing). Having successfully removed the shift bucket and steering nozzle, I pulled out the allen wrench that fits on a socket wrench to remove the bolts which hold the nozzle to the impeller assembly. These bolts were somewhat tighter than the other allen bolts, and had never-seize on them rather than loctite. Fortunately, they still came out without too much hassle (miraculously without using a torch). Now, I'm down to the impeller housing, and the three miniature allen bolts which hold the tail cone onto the impeller housing. Despite considerable corrosion, I was able to remove these three small allen screws. As I mentioned, the tail cone had no paint on it, so I am certain that the salt water was interacting with the aluminum and stainless every time I launched the Rage. With the screws out, I was able to tap on the tail cone with a rubber mallet and gently pry with a flat screw driver to pry the tail cone from the impeller housing.

Having the cone off, I noticed some minor rust on the face of the bearing inside. I also noted that my impeller did not spin freely, but tended to drag on the wear ring on atleast one blade in one particular location. I surmise this is due to some corrosion of the aluminum under the stainless steel wear ring. If the impeller was out of the way, I could take care of that in a jiffy with a dremel tool. After looking through my partial list of required parts, I contacted Turbojet Marine Products to determine what was included in the "Impeller Housing Seal Kit". It turns out that the kit includes all the seals you need to replace in the impeller housing for $38! I also inquired how to remove the impeller from the bearing shaft. The staff at TMP said you could hold the impeller in place using a screw driver through the impeller housing to free the bolt. I opted to put my weight onto the housing while it was resting on a piece of plywood, then hit the bearing shaft with a pneumatic impact wrench. After a short bit of persuading, the bolt backed out of the impeller easily.

Under the impeller, I found that the close proximity of the stainless steel impeller to the aluminum housing causes corrosion that you "don't see" beneath the impeller. You will only ever notice this if you remove the impeller. With the impeller removed, I was able to prime and paint the area. The seals under the impeller are double stacked, and the front (visible) one looked terrible! The bearing shaft pulls out of the bearings once the impeler is removed. A gentle tap with a block of wood will help the stubborn shaft. Once the shaft is removed, a seal remover can be used to pull the seals out one by one. My father has had a Craftsman seal remover for years, and this is the first time I can remember using it for what it was intended to do. The second seal looked to be in somewhat better shape, but having gone this far I chose to replace them both, so out they came.

The bearings in my housing were somewhat worn out. I had a slight amount of play evident in the impeller shaft, and I was able to press the impeller away from the spot where it dragged, so it wouldn't drag. That told me the bearings really needed to be replaced while I was in this deep. Prior to attempting to remove the bearings, I lightly sanded the inner bore that the bearings press into to remove any surface corrosion which may hinder bearing removal. Unfortunately, reading the Turbojet service manual, they said pull out your XXYY puller and remove the bearings. Not having their puller, I had to get creative. I found that a long bar could be laid across the entire face of the impeller assembly, and if the bar had a hole in it, you could insert a bolt down the hole through the bearing. Now, if you grind a little off a washer so it will slip through the rear bearing (which had a slightly larger diameter center than the front bearing), you could place the washers on the bolt and thread a nut onto the bolt to act as a makeshift puller. The first bar I used was not strong enough and warped under the strain from the bolt, so I located a more robust piece of material around dad's shop and started again. With that in place and a slight amount of torque applied through the bolt, I began to tap gently on the back side of my makeshift puller using a long punch. Shortly thereafter, I realized I could just tap on the extension on the end of the deep socket I was using. This effectively drives the bearing out, as you tighten the bolt and tap it with a hammer and punch, tighten the bolt, tap it, repeatedly. With the front bearing now removed, I went on to the rear bearing using a similar technique. I found some small blocks 2x4 to support my puller, and applied tension and tapped the bearing out with a hammer on my socket as before.

Having everything apart, I used the dremel to remove the high spot in the wear ring (or so I thought). I took more time and prepped and painted the impeller housing, the tail cone, the nozzle, the steering nozzle, and the reverse bucket using the tried and true methods described on Continuouswave.com for repainting aluminum lower units. (Zinc Chromate primer, then plenty of top coats, then clear coat several times).

Once everything was painted, my parts had arrived, and I had located some blue loctite (medium duty nut lock) along with a tube of OMC Triple Guard Grease. Before getting going with reassembly, I took some time to run a metric tap through the various threaded holes all over the impeller housing. Chasing the threads using a tap was worth the added time it took. I then followed the instructions for reassembly in the service manual noting that the new bearings simply slid into place and did not actually need to be pressed into place as I feared. With the bearings in place, I cleaned the bore that I had just oiled with gear oil to install the bearing, and applied some gasket sealer to the seals prior to installing them. I found the old front bearing works well to press the seals into place.

Once the seals were in place, I installed the spacer greased it and the seals with triple guard grease as described in the manual. Two new O-rings went on the impeller shaft and two more on the tail cone. I was fortunate to have purchased the performance kit which comes with a short extension segment for the impeller drive shaft. I used this clamped in the shop vise to allow me to torque the impeller back onto the bearing shaft. Without this handy item, you may need to re-torque the impeller to the shaft using the same pressed against the plywood technique I used to remove the impeller initially. I put a small amount of gasket sealer on the tail cone to seal it to the impeller housing and keep water out of the bearings.

Continuing on with reassembly, I applied a thin coat of silicone to the flat surface between the impeller housing and the performance nozzle I'd bought. I used never-seize on the bolt threads as was done before. You want a VERY thin coat of silicone sealer on that surface as they mate very well and squish all your excess out. From there, I installed new bushings in my various pivot points taking care to put a dab of triple guard grease on every pivot point. To seal the threads on the pivot bolts, I used blue loctite as had been done before. This serves double duty because it keeps the pivot bolts from removing themselves, and it seems to keep water out of the threads. Within about 3 hours, I had the entire impeller assembly reassembled (just the assembly stage, not disassembly or cleaning or painting!)

Having purchased the performance kit, I will take a side step and remove the pins that the drive unit slides back on. Using a large wrench, I was able to muster enough leverage to remove the two pins that the drive unit slides back on. With these removed, I put some blue loctite in the threads and installed the new longer replacement pins. With those installed, I installed the spacer which extends the drive shaft rearward ~3" and torqued the set screw slightly. With the drive shaft spacer in place, I lubed the inside of the alignment pin holes in the impeller housing spacer (sets the impeller assembly back ~3" as part of the performance kit). I then spread triple guard grease on the longer pins which are slightly tapered to allow the impeller housing to slide back more easily than the original. (I am amazed how easily the impeller assembly slides back using these tapered pins).

Once the impeller assembly is assembled, it's a matter of taking it back out to the boat and installing the steering and shift cables. Those went on without too much fanfare, but don't forget the loctite on the shift bucket bolt.

Then came the moment of truth. As usual, one should always start the boat up on the garden hose at the house before taking the boat down to the launch ramp for the moment of truth. I say this because I had a mud wasp build a nest in one of the cooling passages while I took time to rebuild the impeller assembly. The result was that cooling flow was restricted if not blocked completely when I was motoring back to the house from the launch ramp. The overheat alarm still works perfectly, and is as annoying as always. After some late evening paddling the last 1/4 mile back to the house, I put the boat up on the lift and brought down my infra-red thermometer from the house. Using a piece of string trimmer line, I probed the passages and soon located some sand in the onboard strainer after hooking up the garden hose flusher. Once the weekend arrived, I was able to take the boat out for a test run during daylight hours, and it performed almost flawlessly. My remaining hangup is that my neutral bucket location has moved slightly from where it originally had been. Thus, the boat is slightly biased toward reverse even when it is in "neutral" according to the throttle lever. The other hangup was that the reverse bucket literally hung up in reverse and would not come out of reverse gear without some fiddling and hanging over the back of the boat. Fortunately, I was in a sheltered canal when this occured.

My overall impression using just the impeller extension with the revised nozzle for the performance kit and not the updated intake grate is that the boat feels as if it has additional pep when punching it from a dead stop. I would like to install the new intake grate, but I cannot seem to figure out how to remove countersunk allen bolts which hold the grate on. I do not wish to drill and re-tap all the bolt holes simply to install the new grate.

Having slightly clearanced the impeller wear ring where I thought it was rubbing the impeller, and doing additional clearance work using the dremel to get it to actually clear the impeller after I was installing the impeller later. I have noticed that my boat has always been rubbing, as long as I have owned it. I used to have a slight growl sound with the boat idling which has gone away now that the impeller spins freely in the housing. For those who think their Rage may make funny sounds, check to see that your impeller is not dragging on any portion of the wear ring. It should spin freely when the impeller housing is slid back.

As always, I'm looking foward to putting some additional hours on the Rage this winter (seemingly the only season I use this boat). Hope this helps some fellow Rage owners out there, and if you have any questions feel free to ask... I only shot a few photos during reassembly as the process was going so well... Not sure they're worth hosting at the moment, but if you want a look I can put them up somewhere Larry. The bearings were ~$55 for the pair, the seals were $37, and the performance kit was $450.

posted 12-22-2005 12:44 PM ET (US)            

Sandblasting, paint preparation, priming, top coating and clear coating took the most time. Unfortunately, even using laquer paints it is time consuming waiting for coats to dry between applications. Skipping the painting step would save an enormous amount of time. Hence my quote of an afternoon.

The bearings are the permanently sealed type, so if it seems to be dragging more than usual it is possible to have gotten water into the interior of the housing and trapped the water there. Pulling the tail cone, you'll know whether you've taken water in through that route. Mine had considerable corrosion on that end and slight surface rusting on the bearing. To get to the front seals you have to remove the tail cone get a wrench on the impeller shaft to remove impeller as I described in detail in the previous post.

posted 06-06-2011 10:41 AM ET (US)            

You are just the guy I have been looking for with experience with Rage.

Briefly, I have spent the winter trying to figure what is wrong with my Rage. It just spins and doesn't propel the boat. We have come to the conclusion that it is cavitating but can't figure out why? Also Lisa has been very helpfull. Have you had any such experience?

Briefly, I started on this site last fall but didn't get any valuable assistance. It had started to spin once in a while last seasons so the second time out I gave it a real test run and it locked up tight. Since I didn't have tools you spook of either and prices fron Lisa were substantial I took it to the local OMC dealer who at some trouble found the bearing "welded" to casing but was able to dig them out and remachine the bold and put in new seals and bearings. Now it revolves very smoothly but he warned that there is no way to grease the bearing in the future. But that didn't solve the problem so we thought it must be a transmission gear that broke during the lockout. I couldn't stand to spend the $700 to $800 to have the dealer take out the engine so I took it on as winter project. A long story short! We could find no problems, so I put it back together. Now it runs again just fine but no propulsion. I have traded pictures of impeller unit with Lisa but can't find much difference. I have had the boat for about five years.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated. This is a Rage 14, 1994 with 115HP.