khargrove

I tried the weatherstripping vs. factory neoprene on my other jet....I was able to locate the black (more dense) vs. gray weatherstripping at a Lowe's. My local Home Depot didn't stock it. The adhesive was a little weak, so I added some on both sides of the weatherstripping. If you take the time to match your ends so that the fit is good, it seems to work great.

No.

1996 and older boats have the needle bearing driveshaft carrier with the dual double cup seals. You might remove the driveshaft and pull the carriers to make sure the bearing and seals are in good shape.

Replacing the wear ring with some sort of weather stripping? Never heard of it. I'd stick with the neoprene wear rings that are meant for the boat.

I'm not sure where I saw the other posting about using Home Depot Closed Cell weatherstripping, but I took it off and replaced it with a new stock neoprene ring. No more cavitation. None. If anyone happens to read this, it's important not to put any black RTV silicone sealer on the neoprene seal. Just make sure the transom plate (whatever it's called) is clean and press the adhesive side so that it fits good. Make sure the ridges on the impeller housing (the black ring that goes against the neoprene ring) are clean. Again, somewhere in this website someone said it's good to put sealer all around the housing, but I just installed mine with only a small bead at the very outer edge. It works great....

Back to the weatherstripping, the grey stuff from Home Depot isn't as dense as the neoprene rings.....