Volvo outdrive ram seals

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thames cruiser

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Hi Guys,

Well, boat is out of the water this week for stern drive service (and gelcoat repairs, antifoul etc.) all ready for the new boating season. Great, good plan, now going seriously wrong....

Fist thing, the lift out was a day late, so engineers now have 4 days not 5 to do a weeks worth of work.
Next, they find steering bush problems, bit complicated for me, but big additional bill - hohum me thinks, well there's always something extra!

But now, they tell me three of the four rams need replacing, because the seals have gone. This wouldn't be so expensive if a service kit was available from Volvo, but apparnetly they now only sell the replacement rams, at over £400 plus VAT each!!!!

Does anyone know where suitable non-Volvo relplacement ram seals can be sourced from?
Thanks.
 
thames cruiser said:
Hi Guys,

Well, boat is out of the water this week for stern drive service (and gelcoat repairs, antifoul etc.) all ready for the new boating season. Great, good plan, now going seriously wrong....

Fist thing, the lift out was a day late, so engineers now have 4 days not 5 to do a weeks worth of work.
Next, they find steering bush problems, bit complicated for me, but big additional bill - hohum me thinks, well there's always something extra!

But now, they tell me three of the four rams need replacing, because the seals have gone. This wouldn't be so expensive if a service kit was available from Volvo, but apparnetly they now only sell the replacement rams, at over £400 plus VAT each!!!!

Does anyone know where suitable non-Volvo relplacement ram seals can be sourced from?
Thanks.
Click to expand...

Try Volvopaul of this domain. pm him a message or pm me and I'll give you his mobile. A second opinion on cost is always worth it.
 
You can replace the seals and keep your rams, it takes a good mechanic though.

I had the same problem a few years back and posted the same q on here, search for seals and rams and maybe you find the thread.

Also, are they actually leaking? There should be oil on the water around the drives or water in the oil.
I think there are 2 seals, the ones you can see are not the ones keeping the oil in or the water out, they just make sure stuff don't follow the rod into the ram.
 
Thanks A 8. There is a leak for sure, there was oil in the water and emulsified fluid (from and in at least one ram). But I'm not sure about all three, so will check.
 
Hi Thames Cruiser

There was a very interesting post a while ago by forumite JPARHAM titled 'Think I've mended my KAD32 DPE rams, put that in the search, probably a few pages back but he does list part numbers for the seals as well as a detailed description on taking the rams apart. The cost of the seals was around £35 if I remember correctly but stand to be corrected.

I expect by now you may have had the rams replaced but you should have the old ones you could overhaul - maybe?

Happy reading.
 
Last edited:
Hi,
It's me that wrote the original thread.
Yes, straightforward to change the seals yourself.
I did get mine from Pirtek. Take the piston in and they will do all the measuring. Take my part numbers in aswell for back-up.
Parts are available for pick-up within 5 days, but it you're stuck, they do an overnight delivery.
You just have to make the tool to get the seal undone ;-)

Good luck!
 
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