SD60 Hull Seals help.

[Captain Bill]

This will probably eventually turn into a rant about incompetent "professional Mechanics" but for the moment I need some information to determine how much trouble they have caused me. I recently had some work done on my Yanmar SD60 saildrives and it was not completed properly. After I motored 75 miles home from the boatyard I found that the snap rings sealing the secondary hull seals had come off of the saildrives. Snap rings is what the parts catalog calls these, but I'm talking about the stainless steel bands that hold the inner hull seals to the clamp that fastens to the engine bed. On my old SD40s these seals were crimped to hold them in place. The new ones on the SD60s look more like a stainless version of a cable tie and don't seem to work the same way. I have three questions;


Once "improperly tightened" can they be reused?


Do they require a special tool to be properly tightened?


If no special tool is required, what is the proper way to tighten them?


I have the SD60 service manual but there is no mention of these snap rings.



In addition to these questions, in my efforts to find the name and number of these bands, I was reviewing the part numbers installed by the mechanic and found that they used part number 196460-02730 which is the proper number for the outer band. I then noticed that the inner snap ring which fastens the secondary hull seal to the saildrive has a separate part number 196460-02740. On the installed parts list I see four 196460-02730s and no 196460-02740s. I can only assume that they installed the wrong snap rings where the 196460-02740s should go. To get to that snap ring I think one has to haul the boat as you have to remove the clamp ring to access it. I guess I need to know how big of a deal is it that they used the wrong snap ring on inner seal?



This is the major issue I have left from this so called service which I will get into on a review when this is all over. If these snap rings do require a special tool to tighten and they didn't use one on the outer ones what confidence should I have about the inner ones being tightened?



Just note that yards that can haul catamarans are limited in availability on the west coast of Florida and there are none that I am aware of that let you work on your own boat. The company that serviced my saildrives was engaged by the yard to replace the prop shaft seals, not the hull seals. The hull seal replacement was not authorized or approved by me. I had planned to visit the yard regularly during the process but I threw my back out before the saildrive subcontractor arrived and was unable to sit in a car for a couple of weeks so all this was done before I discovered there was an issue. This will be covered in detail when all of the disputes are resolved.