I recently upgraded from my 13hp beavertail to a 2008 Mud buddy 27hp longtail. Times are tough and due to cost I purchaced a used motor but think I got a pretty good deal with the expectation of puting some money back into it. The prop is pretty beat up and there is some vibration to the end of the longtail shaft which I figure is the unbalanced prop. However, there is a very small amount of play on the drive shaft coming out of the lower end of the shaft (with the motor off you can grap the prop and feel the shaft wiggle ever so slightly coming out of the shaft inside the big stainless piece at the end of the shaft). My beavertail has no play at all after being run for 4 years. Does this mean it is time to replace the lower seals or bearings on the shaft? I have been to the mud buddy website and while their link for parts has all their surface drive motors parts diagrams, they have almost no parts for longtails listed. Does anyone know how to go about ordering new seals or bearings if needed? Is replacement something that can easily be done without going to the dealer? Thanks for any info.

I had one for a few years and my buddy still has a 24hp beavertail. His seal is bad right now but i dont see a big problem with it. If you pull his up on the trailer and lift the prop up, then pull up, water will come out of the end when u let it back down. My advice to him was to grease it and run it. If you want to replace the seal you would have to take off the prop and from my experience doing that you are going to break/tear up something. Those props dont come off easy and arent cheap. Last one we had to grind off, the two before that we broke the shaft. Im not familiar with the MB longtail but im sure it is like beavertail and has a screw in seal at the bottom. U may could dis connect the shaft at the top and take it all the way out and put on a new one w/o removing the prop and that would be your best bet. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the info. After reading the other posts on here it looks like getting the props off is universally a real bitch. I am sure there will be beer and cussing involved and I just hope I don't spill too much blood. The prop right now is really shot and I am sure would seriously limit the performance so has to come off one way or another. So if I am going to go through the trouble I figure I may as well try to fix the lower seals. I talked to the customer service people at Mud Buddy and they seemed pretty optimistic about me getting it off and had a few suggestions. We'll see how it goes...

Keep an eye on it, getting water in the shaft housing is not a good thing, if that is going on then u need to replace it, while engine is running you'll see grease seaping out the end by the prop tthat is a tail tale that th seal is goin out