Re: KH7 water pump

[20mercman]

You should be able to pull the lower unit apart by first pulling the prop shaft. Then remove the drive shaft pinion nut, have the water pump cover off of course. Then place the drive shaft in a vice and with either a dead blow hammer or protecting the housing with a block of wood, you can drive the lower unit off of the drive shaft and this will remove the water pump housing at the same time. There is no need to swap out lower units unless you want to. I have two KH-7’s and two other motors that have KH-7 lower units on them. There is nothing wrong with them. They do take a F-11K forward bearing, same as the reverse bearing in all of them. Mercury did upgrade the forward bearing, but I have never seen one that was damaged by anything other than rust. There are differences in the drive shaft, but that also is not a problem. You just need to use a short pin for the water pump drive key. Like I said, don’t fret it, it is not difficult. Also, as you lower unit is unconverted, you will most likely need to add the additional water intake holes just forward of the prop. Some folks turned their lower units into Suisse Cheese by drilling a bunch of holes. You need 12 total, 6 on each side.

Steve