Alpha One Drive
 

For the 2nd time in 2 years the gears have dropped on my 1986 Alpha 1 Drive, first time was not enough gear lube, this time there was plenty of gear lube (32oz according to mercruiser), is there anything else that could cause the gear drop to happen?

Define "drop" please.

What engine do you have? I think Merc put Alphas behind 454s for a few years in the 80s. Not such a great idea, it turns out.

They rod with the gears has moved down about 2 inch's, metal shavings, inside the lower unit, it is a 1986 260 mercruiser, alpha 1......

Anyone got a diagram, or a link to a site where I can see a visual of these things? I'm getting worried this is something I should be checking and I'm not....:eek:

Yikes, that sounds awful. I dunno how much it cost to have fixed, but you may want to price one of these instead: http://www.sterndrive.cc/ They are VERY reasonably priced.

www.dougrussell.com has excellent parts diagrams online.

Alphas are not meant for high HP.
If this is the case you will need to be very careful with it. Easy takes offs, straight as possible and don't let it come out of the water.

Dave (or anyone really),

Have you or anyone you know used one of these aftermarket drives? It would be interesting to here about someones experience with them........

A friend of mine put two of them on the back of his old Baja and they worked quite well. He went from two RH rotation Alpha SS drives to a LH/RH rotation setup with the Sterndrive Engineering units. He had no problems with the drives at all...

PM me. I will be working the NHRBA booth at the Boston Boat Show and if the Sterndrive Engineering guys are there I can get you some info...

Woodsy

I don't know anyone that's used one. I just know they exist and wanted to be sure jnaughton knew of the option.

I think I'd be tempted to try one if I needed more than $1000 worth of parts and labor on an old drive. $1200 for a complete drive assembly is really cheap. 3 year warranty on the big parts is enough of an incentive to me.

Woodsy, Thanks for the offer to pick up information... At the momment though I don't have a Merc. or for that matter now that I think about it do I know any one that does.... I was just looking to see what kind of feed back on these drives there was... and if you friend is a Forum memeber ask him to post ...... because who knows what I will own in the future.........

Also, I looked quickly at there website and it is pretty informative...........