I just completed what you are doing. In my case its a 1991 unit and seemed
to have maintenance. Following are what I ended up replacing:

1. All the bellows, the shift cable and exhaust were damaged. Changed
the U-joint bellow since it was already out, didn't want to revisit that as
it will mean taking out the exhaust bellow again. The recommended tool for
the exhaust bellow needs the shiftshaft to be removed, can be avoided if you
split the tool and use one arm only.
2. There was some oil in bellow and surface rust on yokes. Possible
water ingress at some point in its life. Opened up the upper drive to be
sure, oil seal was leaking and the yoke was rusty causing the seal damage.
Yoke replaced.
3. Since drive was stripped, the bearings had some pitting, replaced all
4.
4. U-joints checked. They did not make any noises when running. Wear
ridges can be seen on the bearing face. Both replaced.
5. Shiftshaft seal was in poor state, replace it with new bushing kit
which uses double seals. Need tool to do this. Unless your had been
removed recently, likely you'll have to break the shift lever.
6. Took opportunity to replace the shift cable. Likely to be stucked,
mine was. Made tool by welding a pipe to a 9/16 x 3/8 drive socket to
create a 4 inch deep socket. Finally drilled the brass end out. Cable must
come out if you intend to change the bellow, other option is removing the
bell housing (need tool), this disturbs the water hose, understand this is
very difficult to install.

Good luck.

Tan PS


"Joe Blizzard" wrote in message
...
I've begun the bellows replacement on my Merc 165 / R-drive. This unit has
low hours, but it's 27 years old and doesn't appear to have had much
maintenance before I got it two years ago. I'm pretty sure this is the
first
time the drive has been off since it was put on in 1977. Anyway, when I
got
the drive off, I found an ounce or two of watery grease (or maybe it was
greasy water) in the bottom of the u-joint bellows and the u-joint yokes
have some surface rust on them. Should I be concerned about the condition
of
the joints? The u-joints move freely, the seals are intact, and I didn't
have any symptoms like noise or vibration.