Hyperryd

Good luck man. It's not too bad. Toughest parts were breaking the shaft free from the coupler and getting the old strut bearings out. Other than those it was a piece of cake. Should be nothing compared to a V-drive swap!

Great job as usual Rugger! If the rest of your boat get equal attention that the ass does, it's going to be better than a new boat for sure!!

If I was going for purely cosmetics, sure. I'm a believer that once water starts running over the top of the slapper you have reached the point of diminishing returns. If you are adding a lot of ballast you are sinking the ass end and lowering the slapper in the water. To me it's a simple decision of function over form. You don't add slappers for style points, although you can do extra things to make them look nice. I wanted mine to look stock and gave them a pretty good shape. They will never be accused of looking better than @Rugger stealth gates, but then none will.

Very nice Timbr!! Its weird seeing those on the back of a Malibu. LOL. I think both surf systems are great. They get you out there surfing so much faster. Having people that ride either side be able to go right now, with the push of a button, is priceless. Welcome to the surf system club! We can debate the differences all day, but only if that argument is being held on the water with test rides of each to compare!!

World Peace!!!! Ok just killer surf waves...

That is just awesome Rugger!! You have way more fiberglass patience than I do. They definitely look better than the brand new Malibu gates.

Ok so I figured I would give an update on the flooring after some pretty good use this summer. I still love this flooring and I will never go back to carpet. I will say though that I do not recommend the diamonds to anyone. The lined sheets are holding up great but the diamonds ar lifting at multiple locations. Anywhere that I cut the diamonds to small triangles to fit the boat wants to lift. I'm talking about the brown from the black. There are just too many edges to catch. This winter when I'm installing under the seats I will probably replace the diamonds with more lines. I love the look but need more durability than they offer. Just wanted to give an honest review. Still a great value, just avoid the diamonds!

Ok so I figured I would give an update on the flooring after some pretty good use this summer. I still love this flooring and I will never go back to carpet. I will say though that I do not recommend the diamonds to anyone. The lined sheets are holding up great but the diamonds ar lifting at multiple locations. Anywhere that I cut the diamonds to small triangles to fit the boat wants to lift. I'm talking about the brown from the black. There are just too many edges to catch. This winter when I'm installing under the seats I will probably replace the diamonds with more lines. I love the look but need more durability than they offer. Just wanted to give an honest review. Still a great value, just avoid the diamonds!

I followed up with Tim at Glide Bearings on pricing. Regular cap GMSS Shaft Seal = $160. $220 for the pro kit with strut bearings. Split Cap GMSS Shaft Seal = $195 includes extra seal. $255 for Pro Kit. Tim is offering a 10% discount for Wake Garage forum members. PM me or tim@glide here on this site for the discount code.

In the PSS there will usually be a dark area on the hull under the seal from graphite grindings. Sometimes there will be some grinding noises according to my dealer, but I never heard any.

It was time to replace my PSS seal on my 2011 B52, so I searched the threads to find the best option to use for replacement. Surprisingly there is a lot of opinion and not a lot of facts out there between the PSS, the OJ and the Glide Bearing Seals. After reading what I could I felt the best option might be the Glide Bearing dripless seal. I called them up and ended up speaking with the owner Tim. Tim's a great guy and truely a boat fanatic. After a good discussion I decided to try the GMSS SC Pro Kit. The SC stands for Split cap and the Pro designates the kit also has the strut bearings that I wanted to go ahead and replace since I was pulling the shaft anyways. The split cap set up is new. It is pretty sweet in that it includes a spare seal that rides on the shaft in front of the housing. When the seal does eventually need replacement, you simply remove the split cap, pry out and remove the old seal and then slide the seal that is already on the shaft down and replace the split cap. Essentially you get two seals for the price of one and you don't have to remove the shaft from the coupler to do the second seal! This is a great seal upgrade for any brand of boat inboard boat. Out of the box, the pro kit looks like this. It comes with the seal body, install tool pre installed, the spare seal, hose & fittings to supply water, and the strut bearings. The first thing I did was to remove the propeller. Then I needed to remove the shaft and PSS seal. The coupler was a real pain since it is a reverse coupler and I didn't have the special tool. I removed the shaft nut, the coupler bolts and the shaft set screw. I then used a couple of box wrenches between the coupler and the V-drive and reinstalled & hand tightened the coupler bolts. I then tapped on the front of the shaft with the side of a hammer. There isn't a lot of room so I wasn't a lot of impact. After the third tap the shaft popped loose and I removed the coupler. With the shaft out I loosened the hose clamps on the PSS seal and pulled it out of the boat. I then had to take emery cloth to the area on the shaft where the PSS set screws set against the shaft. You don't want anything to make a break in the new seal. The last piece of demo is to remove the strut bearings. This turned into a bit of a chore on a 108 degree day. I used a hack saw blade to cut the existing rubber and metal bearings. I kept stopping to see if I was cutting into the strut. It is hard to tell what is bearing and what is strut. In the end after stopping 10 times I was able to make two cuts in the bearing and then use a screw driver to pry them out. This was probably the hardest part of the whole job. If you just do the shaft seal this isn't neccesary. I wanted to just be fresh all the way through. Warning, this can turn your Snap On screw driver into a snap off screwdriver! Now that all of the old parts are out, it was time to install the new ones. The strut bearings are to be put in the freezer the night before. To install you just insert them into the strut with the splines of the bearings configured the same on the front bearing and the rear. It was so hot the day I installed them that about half way in they got stuck and I had to use a piece of wood and a small hammer to get them all the way in. According to Tim they normally go all the way in and then expand as they warm up. Wait about 15 minutes and then you can reinstall the shaft. Next up is the seal kit. The kit comes complete with the seal housing, bellows, and spare seal all preinstalled on the install tool. Just slide the bellows over the shaft log and tighten the clamps. Then slide the shaft through the housing and V-drive. The install tool will be on the end of the shaft. Remove the tool and reinstall the coupler. Slide the spare seal down to about 2" above the housing cap. It will stay there until you need it. The last thing I did was to install the water line. The kit comes with all of the clamps and fittings to tie into the raw water intake after the v-drive. I decided to instead run the 3/8" line to a port on the raw water pump. I didn't get any pics of that, but it is pretty straight forward. Remember to tighten everything up and reinstall the prop.When I took it to the lake it worked perfectly with no leaks. The low speed growl in turns and a slight vibration I had at idle speed were gone. At full throttle I'm still pretty loud, but that really increased when I went to the 15" prop and didn't change with the new kit. Overall this is a very nice kit. Without the strut bearings it probably would have been around 2 hours. This isn't an easy job, but it isn't so hard that you need to pay the dealer ungodly money to do it!The standard GMSS SC kit goes for $195 and the SC Pro kit with the strut bearings lists for $255. Talking with Tim I found out that he designed and builds the OJ dripless seal for them. He came up with his improved design with the new Glide Bearings seals. OJ also distributes the GB kit to most of the manufacturers. That is why there is confusion as to the OEM seal being a GB or OJ. They are GB distributed by OJ. The new split cap isn't on the factory boats. They still sell the regular cap version, but I don't know the price. In talking to Tim he is working on a discount for Wake Garage members. I will let you know as soon as he figures it out. For now you can PM Tim@Glide on this site. He will help you figure out what you need for your boat or just answer your questions. He's a good dude. You can also go to their website at www.glidebearings.com and find their contact info or get the link in the Wake Garage Resource Portal. They don't have an online store yet because there are so many size options they want to confirm what you need before they sell it to you.So far so good. I think I made the right decision with Glide Bearings and I hope this thread helps you guys make your decision. It's also to show that you can do this yourself if you don't want to pay the dealer labor rate!

Here's a couple of pics of them in the water with no ballast.

Great job. It definitely updates the interior.

I've heard great things about Ram mounts. For now the one I have is working great. The newer Bluetooth units sound great. The older ones weren't quite there and had some sound issues. I do notice a difference going from different sources. My IPhone 5S is louder than my iPad or my android tablet with the volumes set all the way up.

I used a trim router right on top of the flooring with the wood template underneath, no problems. Just go slow and try to be consistent all the way around. A full size router would be a challenge. I also only ran the router at 3.5 to 4 on the speed.