articfriends

iTrader: (1)

Has anyone actually ever figured out 100% why a cone clutch (newer style 5 slot) would randomly act up/stick etc and what the cure is? Last year at end of season my boat went into reverse slow a couple times and then at end of the day backing off the river bank to put on trailer stuck in reverse so hard that I broke shift cable trying to get it back into neutral. Tore it down, nothing bound or stuck what so-ever, everything looks like new still, cone clutch has almost 400 hard hours on it, going to install a new one as good measure but not convinced it actually has anything wrong with it. Obvious things to save your time posting-NOT shifter adjustment as would NOT move to neutral position without putting enough force into it to break the cable, shift fork / cam wedge has virtually NO wear , linkage/ vertical pivot pin nice and smooth, detent ball greased real well and looks like the day it was installed, Smitty

1 MAIDEN AMERICA

Sheeesh, there's no making you happy. For so long I've heard you complain about no movement and now that it moves you complain that it wont stop. lol

How about the clearance between the snap rings in the cone shaft?
Or the threads on the cone and/or shaft being a bit worn creating a bind. More so, the shaft has a slight twist???

Dunno

articfriends

iTrader: (1)

Cone shaft was a new billet Max worx about 50 hours or so ago, cone drops on it and almost turns from gravity if its lubed and u give it a little start, the spirals on the cone itself have some wear but I don't have a new one right now to compare side by side, ordered a new one and will put it back together with it with hope it helps but I don't usually throw parts at stuff hoping that it fixes it. I have worked on about 10-15 Bravo uppers in past 10 years but have never had one where someone says it stuck in gear. Have seen that complaint on here but never heard a final result of where replacing a cone fixed this problem, Smitty

Vinny P

Smitty,
I know you know what the internals of a Bravo is supposed to look like, so I wont go there. I am thinking of another possible issue. Is it possible that there is too much load on the clutch , making it difficult to come out of gear? Maybe the engine idling too high? Maybe too big a prop?

articfriends

iTrader: (1)

The thing is Vinny is I was running the same prop and same tune I have had for past 100 plus hours, same idle etc. Lately every problem of everything I been working on has shown no logical cause, and luckily the stuff has just worked when it went back together but my day is coming soon where I will be banging my head against the wall trying to figure out why something is still AFU'd! Had a ford super duty 4r100 come in for no forward movement 2 weeks ago, everything associated with moving forward still looked like new, air checked perfect and the stuff that looked like crap was also needed to have a solid reverse which it had. It magically worked when we were done but as a auto tech we get pretty nervous when were putting something back together knowing we haven't really fixed anything and just hoping that it now works and I have been in 100+ of these the e4od's and 4r100's, same way with this drive, not really seeing much wrong and changing a cone clutch that has just a little wear with hope it fixes the problem this biotch has, thanks for your input though, Smitty

Vinny P

Yeah, I figured you would have thought of that possibility, I was just throwing out the only idea I had. I agree with you on making sure you found the problem, rather than just putting it back together and hoping. Mechanical repairs were never easy to do and I dont see them getting any easier in the future.
At work, I pulled the heads on a pair of 525's in a 39 OL. Put them back on this week, found the starboard engine wouldnt refire. Port was fine. No spark on starboard engine. Went crazy for several hours, had another mechanic in there with me for a while. We swapped all ignition related components with the good engine, still nothing. Started tracing wires, we found the trigger wire from the crank sensor to the ECU to be open. WTF!! How does stuff like this happen?
Like the saying goes, if it were easy, everyone could do it!!

Good Luck in your search.