satisfied1

Check the seal around the shaft at the bottom by the prop. Take some oil out of the drive and put in a pie pan and put heat to it. If the oil make a popping sound you have water in the drive. I.E. seals or bigger problems are soon to come.

relaxalot

Thanks guys, the drive is under warranty and Merc is saying to replace the blown yoke seal and test the boat again. I think it will still have the same problems because the drive is building pressure. I may be able to test this weekend.

I will let you know

billet marine

Extended runs over 80mph realy generate heat in a Bravo and cause expansion. If your bearings (especially pinion bearings) are in good shape, I would suspect excesive oil temps. Our water cooled billet top cap work like a heat sink (and a shower) and will drop your oil temps by an honest 50 degrees on hard runs! (decreasing expansion)
We have also tested/decided that the Merc, HP, quicksilver gear lube works the best. (red line #2) Synthetics can drop temperatures but do not offer the wear resistance of a molyb. based fluid.
If your drive is in good mechanical condition (which it sounds like it is) and our Billet water cooled topcap does not cure your problem, I will refund your money for the cap...
Curtis @ Billet Marine www.billetmarine.com

Strip Poker 388

iTrader: (6)

The B Max bottles are vented,no oring, We run the B max's with just 1 inch of oil in the bottles, The level will rise 4-5 inches depending on how hard ya run it,Amsoil oil.this is what the bravo shop recomends


I have these for sale

Outdrive1

A couple of ideas for you. On my DCB I have offshore pickups in the sponsons. They had capped the water inlet at the transom. The drive bottle kept going low and I would get water and oil in the bilge but I could never find any leaks. I pulled the drive and found water and oil in the bellows but I couldn't find any holes in the bellows. I pulled the yoke out and the yoke had rust and pits where the seal rides. So it needed a new yoke and seal to start with. Since I couldn't find any holes in the bellows, my thought was that it was building so much water pressure in the drive because of the water pickup line being capped, that it needed somewhere to go. So I tapped the drive and made a drive shower out the water intake system. I also rigged an Eliminator with a B-Max and offshore pickups by machining a fitting and running a line right out the back of the transom, pretty much the same deal but easier to do with the motor out than in. My thoughts are that if you run an offshore pickup, the drive needs the water to flow through it to keep it cool and the system wasn't designed to hold 60 plus psi of water pressure at speed for any length of time.

Here's a pick of the DCB and the Eliminator.

Oh and Roy at GetReal products sells various sizes of drive bottles that can accommodate any and up to B-Max's that expand considerably.

relaxalot

Thanks for the ideas. I purchased a slightly used Bravo XR from Gary at TPI. I am going to mount it up tomorrow and test it. Mercury finally agreed to ship out an upper drive assembly to repair my existing drive. I think they should replace the whole thing. I am still talking with them. I purchased the drive because I am tired of waiting. I will keep the other drive as a backup.

Reggie Rich

hello i need 2 of these bottles... how much

Griff

This thread is 13+ years old
Plenty of companies make larger bottles