380: Saildrive Fairing / Skirt

[coldar1]

A note of caution about the external cover. A slipway in Croatia made a new cover for one of my two sail drive units early 2013, out of 3mm thick poly-carbonate material and then used 10 X 3mm stainless screws and Sika Flex adhesive to affix the cover. About 1 month after the slipping, I started to notice water entering the boat via the Volvo D2-55 engine mounting case which is bonded to the hull in construction. By the end of the year, I was taking in about 5-7 lph, which was managed adequately by my keel bilge pump on that side. We slipped our cat in Marmaris, Turkey 28th October to find that the repair guy had pierced the hull in 3 places while drilling the screw holes, and the Sika adhesive was incomplete, allow water to enter. I strongly suggest NO screws be used, and that the skirt be affixed with a good quality adhesive only. The outer skirt coming off part way through the season is far less of a concern than some over zealous soul puncturing you hull!

[lagoon500]

Originally Posted by belizesailor

Unfortunately, I just went through the ridiculously expensive process of replacing mine (different boat, but probably same or similar configuration -- MS25S bear box with 120S drive).

On most Volvo saildrives there are two "skirts" if you will. One fits around the sail drive and is secured on the outside of the hull -- this is just a fairing flap -- not a bad idea, but you can live without it and they usually tear off after a season or two anyway. This one you could fabricate fairly easily from rubber sheet material.

The other, much sturdier and much more critical, forms a seal between the drive train and the hull -- this one is installed where the transmission mates with the sail drive lower unit. This one is called the "bellows". You can see the upper surface of this one from your engine room.

If it is the bellows you need to replace then, I would not recommend trying to fabricate it or its associated parts because a failure could be catastrophic. But, when you find out the prices you will think about the possibility again!

Take a look and see which model gear box/sail drive you have in place. You will need these to get exactly the right parts. Note: your Volvo distributor can pull all this up with just the serial numbers.

MarinePartsEurope.com has some of the best public accessible parts diagrams available. Links for the models I have below. These will give you a good idea of how it all fits together and you can almost certainly find your specific models there too. See item numbers 39 and 29 respectively in the diagrams below.

Volvo Penta Exploded view / schematic Upper Gear Unit Sail Boat Drive Unit MS25S, MS25SR MS25S-A, MS25SR-A - MarinePartsEurope.com

Volvo Penta Exploded view / schematic Lower Gear Unit Sail Boat Drive Unit MS25S, MS25SR, Spare Part Solution MS25S-A, MS25SR-A, 120S-A, 120S-B, 120S-D, 120S-E - MarinePartsEurope.com

The boat of course must be hauled and the engine shifted off its mounts a bit, the saildrive decoupled from the gear box and then removed, in order to do change the bellows.

I also have a copy of good article that describes how to change the bellows in detail. PM me and I will email it to you.

Hi, the links do not seem to be working, do you still have them or any other information online about Lagoons?

[DotDun]

Originally Posted by lagoon500

Hi, the links do not seem to be working, do you still have them or any other information online about Lagoons?

You do realize this thread has been dormant for 5 years.....

[Jon Hacking]

Hi "Lagoon500" & welcome to Cruiser's Forum!

You've kicked a bit of what we call a "zombie thread" as it's been inactive for 5 years (see posting dates at the top of each post) which is probably why the links don't work. There's lots of info on Lagoons on CF. Probably best to search for info. Newer threads will likely have more relevant info.

If you're interested in Sail Drives, we've published 4 helpful mods that you can do to your SDs to make your life easier (if you have Volvo SDs, then they only have a single seal, so my comments on the 2nd seal won't apply).

[DavefromNZ]

I have been wondering what difference it would make if I did not have the fairings fitted to our SD50? They are a hassle to remove and refit.