Help with a B1x gear change
 

I have a bravo1x (in 2002, serial no. OM167435) on 496mag ho. I ordered it with the 1:65 ratio for the altitude here in Denver. I've added a whipple 2 summers ago. To make a long story short I decided this spring to change the ratio to a 1:50 to help with the performance. I searched for a few weeks in the Denver area for someone to do the switch for me. Didn't have much luck. Found someone, reccommended by a reputable dealer, who works out of his own shop. Talked to him, got on his schedule and after 3 weeks I brought the drive in on June 1st. Few days later I paid him a grand to order in the upper gear set, expedited. Check cleared the next day and now 3 weeks later I'm still waiting. :( :( :(

I've got a string of reasons for various delays. I'd to think that since I waited until he was ready and then paid up front I would be at the top of the list. I guess not. I don't know if he has some bigger jobs that keep pushing my job back or what. But I don't have all summer, especially here in Colorado.

I may just go and get my drive back and take the gears if he has them. Hopfully I'm not screwed out of my money.

So, getting past the sob story, I was wondering about doing the work myself. I have a decent set of tools, I can follow instructions and I have patience to do it right. I installed the whipple kit on my 496 successfully. I know I may have to purchase a few tools specific to the job at hand. My understanding is that only the uppers in the Bravo 1x need to be changed for the 1:50 ratio. I have the Mercury Service manual #28 for Bravo sterndrive units. This details a complete tear down and rebuild. It seems that I don't need to go that far to change the gears and the drive has a little less than 50 hours on it.

So I want to ask if anyone has seen or knows of a set of step by step instructions for just changing the upper gears? Am I asking to much or in over my head?

Thanks in advance for any advise!

Pat

Dont know, but good luck. Im moved to MO from Denver (Tech Center Area) and cannot imagine too much boating....let alone boat shops. We used to go to Cherry Creek Reservoir to Jet Ski. Where do you take the Rage? Chatfield?

You Better Have A Pro Do It. There Are Shims And Rolling Torque Settings. If You Screw It Up It Will Cost Alot More

The shims will stay with the upper, if you have the late model cases. You can find what are in yours by pulling off the back cap and there are numbers stamped in the case. . There are no rolling torque settings on the upper just 200 ft#'s on the spanner nut. You will need special merc. tools for some of this. If I can help you let me know. You could ship me just the upper and I can turn around it around in 2 days. $250.00 gear swap out.

Assuming the bearings are good, the only special tools needed are the spanner wrench for the input shaft nut and a 0-15 in lb torque wrench (ebay around $50). I used the number 11 manual when repairing my Bravo 1 which had everything layed out step by step. The shims should be the same since you have an x drive. It's about a one hour job or less once you have the drive off of the boat. Take your time setting up the preload on the input shaft bearings and you'll be fine. Go ahead and put a new seal in the upper while you are there and work clean. I found that the work in the upper was actually very easy. If you still have doubts, go ahead and ship it out for peace of mind, but I would do mine again in a heartbeat.

Rene

Thank you for the advice everyone. I'm going to give it a couple of more days and see if I can get this resolved or completed. I looked up the prices for the tools, a spanner wrench and a shifter adjustment tool (don't have my book with me). Not to bad actually. The gears cost a bit though.

Can I tell if I have the late model case by the serial number?

My real concern is that by putting about 600 hp though the drive I should have an experienced person do this, although I really enyoy being able to do some work myself. :chick:

tablrklakemo;

I do go to Chatfield just to get the boat wet, usually early on the weekends, thats when the local hot air balloon clubs like to launch. I also go to Horestooth in Fort Collins, Lake Granby up off of US40 and then Blue Mesa Reservoir west of Gunnison. I've not been down to Powell for 6 years. I want the lake to come up a bit more before I spend the money to tow that far again.

15 in lb's ???? What are you torqueing down?? That spanner nut is at 200 ft lb's
You also have to make sure that the gears are aligned.

Numb,
the torque wrench is for setting the rolling torque on the pinion bearings. The retainer nut is torqued to 200' lbs and is done by measuring the length of the handle on your 1/2" drive torque wrench. There is a conversion chart in the manual.
The setup at your torque and hp level is pretty critical. You can just reuse the shims in your case. It may or maynot have numbers on the back to indicate the shims to use. I never go by the numbers, I always lash the gears with Merc's latest setup proceedure. Any time I change gears or bearings I do a complete setup. That is the only way you know it is right. And with a blower motor, you may have the power to break things!! Although up there in the thin air, it may not be a problem..
If you want discuss what your options may be, give me a call during the day. My cell is 616-403-1006. I can give you a feel for whether or not you might want to tackle the job yourself, or have it done by someone else and the more you know about it, the better choice you will be able to make when and if you do select someone to do it for you...

Hope this helps.
D*ck

Hi Gadgets - your post's are always right on the money and much apreciated. I just wanted to point out that the chart in the Merc manual is wrong - completely invalid theory. The final torque applied has no relationship to the length of the torque wrench used. They have blindly included this in every shop manual for the past 30+ years.

The distance from the centerline of the fastener to the point where the torque is applied does matter, this is the fixed distance to the ½ drive hole in the spanner and is a factor in the final torque calculation, but it does not change. I can’t remember if the final torque spec Mercury supplies is supposed to be at the spanner nut or at the end of the spanner wrench.

In any case if a fixed bar was used, and we were measuring the weight (force just to keep it simple ) applied at the furthest end of the bar and measuring from the centerline of the fastener this would apply, ie - 1 lb @ 2 feet would be 2 ft lbs, 1 lb @ 3 feet would be 3 ft lbs etc.

However we are not using a fixed bar, we are using a torque wrench and are already measuring the torque at the output end of the wrench. We are not measuring how hard we push on the handle. Example - clicker type wrench, set it at 100 ft lbs, put it on a bolt, push till it clicks. Assuming it is calibrated properly it will click when there is 100 ft lbs at the bolt. Now put a 2' pipe on the end of the handle, we won’t have to push it as hard (but we are not measuring that) it will still click at 100 ft lbs. Make it a 10 ft handle, we will barely have to push at all, still 100 ft lbs on the bolt when it clicks. Make it a different wrench, longer, shorter, does not matter - still 100 ft lbs on the bolt.

If I remember correctly Snap On has a chart that is used with offset adapters & stuff.

I feel like a myth buster

Thank you gentlemen for your informative posts. I sat down and read through the manual again last night and that along with what I've read here leads me to believe that I'd be much more comfortable sending the drive out to someone who's done this before. I'd be in over my head on this one. I'll see what happens in the next couple of days.

Question. I've been told for two weeks now that it's really hard to get a new upper gear set this time of year. (availability) Does this ring true?

Thanks again,

Pat

Nice.....Sounds like fun. Had some friends that would go to horsetooth to wakeboard. I bet granby is fun. Ive been on grand lake a few times, but never got the chance to make it over to granby. Most of our summers were spend 4wheelin or downhill mtn bike'en. Enjoy the rest of the summer. :drink:

Pat, I use Cable Simpson at Great Lakes Marine on Sante Fe to do all my Merc. drive work.
Phone # 303-791-6100
Bob owns the place and Cable is the head merc. mechanic.
I have complete confidence in Cables abilities. I run Blackhawk and XR and Bravo drives. I also live here in Castle Rock Colorado.

If you are interested we are having a Poker/Party at Lake Powell on the weekend of August 18th.
http://www.hotboat.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145220
Nothing fancy or prententious; just a bunch of fun boaters that are in love with Powell. Both families and partiers in this group. Fell free to contact me at 303-478-2679 if you are interested in joining us.

Also, I happen to like Powell with the water level down; it gives us a lot more beaches to choose from when camping or even parking the houseboat.

Don

Marc,
Sorry I havent seen this post for so long.. Just way too busy!!
I have blindly been following the stinkin manual on that point. But what you say makes sense, but we are measuring the torque at the end of a lever. I have interpeted the chart to tell me that to set torque wrench to 130 lbs/ft and it will give me 200 lbs/ft on the retainer nut. But as you mention, the lenght of the torque wrench should not matter. I will have to check into the Snapon chart and see what it says.
So when you torque the retainer nut, what do you torque it to.. 200 ft/lbs on the wrench?

Thanks for the info... always learning, till we stop breathing,
Gotta love this stuff!! :) :)

D*ck

Pat,
The gear set is either available or on back order, plain and simple. Merc does have a habit of running out when you need them the most.. FYI

D*ck

I could be right or I could be wrong but I never felt the torque on that particular spanner nut was critical. For what it's worth, it's holding the bearing races and spacer into the case and it's not adjusting any kind of rolling preload. The rolling preload for that bearing pack is controled by the nut on the end of the yoke. Once it's torqued down it's solid.

So in my mind, 200 ft. lbs. is what I call tight... So I just make them tight, but not tight enough to strip out the threads. :drink: So call me crazy... :p

Now the lower spanner nut...that's a different story.

I accidently over tightened the spanner nut on mine the first time I put it back together and sent the preload completely out of limits to where it was difficult to turn the input shaft by hand. Had to go back and redo the bearing preload. FWIW,

Rene

Something else must have been going on because that doesn't control the preload. The spanner nut tighens up against the outer bearing race, the center spacer and the inner bearing race where it bottoms out inside the case. Somthing else must have been misaligned/missing when you put the gear/bearing/ujoint assembly into the case that made it tighten up like that. I've never had that problem before..

If the center spacer isn't lined up precisely when you set the rolling preload on the bearing pack you'll get false readings when it's installed in the case.

http://www.mercruiserparts.com/Show_...28X%2DDRIVE%29

I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I used the torque wrench in the wrong direction and went waayyy tight before I realized what happened. In any event, I took it back apart, reset the preload and assembled. It has been running perfectly since March or so.

Rene

Don,

I've used Great Lakes for years, in fact I bought my previous boat from Bob. Earlier this spring they were booked way out into early summer. So I ended up chasing down a lead to the fellow I mentioned above. After waiting for 5 weeks I went out to his shop early in July and got my drive back. He then said he'd have the gears in a week or so and I could bring my boat back and we would work on it right away. Now it's almost the end of July and all I get are lies. I had paid for the gears up front (stupid :angry-smiley-044: ) so now I'm trying to get my money back. Was promised my money back last week so I talked to Cable and found that his supplier has the gears in stock. Supposed to get the drive done next week but I may have to cancel 'cause I don't have my money back now. Probably going to go to small claims court and this will all have to wait until next year.

Another boating lesson learned the hard way.

Pat

I did a search and came up with this site on the torque wrench.

Panther, my opinion is you need to hold that pinion bearing package as tightly as possible to prevent it from moving..

http://www.norbar.com:80/torquewrenc...calculator.php


D*ck

Same as Merc - it is wrong

Length of wrench is not part of the equation

That's kinda what I meant, make it tight as possible without damaging threads on the spanner nut and case. They probably give a torque setting so joe blow doesn't strip the threads out. 99% of the people I know and worked with know how tight to make it without putting a torque wrench on it.

For me the actual torque setting (200 lbs) doesn't mean much, especially since no one agrees on how to arrive at that number anyway. :chimp:

Panther, I agree. Tight as possible.

I have to tell you, I did a little googling this early am while having coffe. Every single site I can find has the same calculation for torque using an offset adapter. Is it me or the rest of the world that is crazy ?- please no one answer that.

We're setting up a little experiment right now. Report to follow

Ok... let us know what you find. I tired to find something on Snapoff's site, but no luck.. I may trade in my torque wrench and start using the breaker bar.. :)

Is it possible that they are talking about putting the extension on the drive end of the wrench and not on the handle ? Putting it on the handle would not require any calculation at all, just a torque wrench that reads 200 or more.

Yes, that's what I understand they are doing with the link that Mr. Gadgets posted.

If you extend the toque wrench on the "drive end" I would assume it would have to change the torque measurements on the toque wrench itself (at the clicker) because you are changing the geometry of the torque wrench. The link that D*ck provided does not change the length of the "handle", it only changes the length of the drive end.

well-----

initial data says --- the formulas are correct, will sleep on this over night and try again in the am.

Set up a 12" offset, put a 1/2 drive at 12" offset & 6" offset, put the output end in a digital rotary torque meter.

Pics to follow

Don't we have any ME's around here?
Hooked up a digital torque

Ok.. lets all sleep on it!! Try again in the morning.. :) Gotta love it when minds all over the country are working on a theory!!

D*ck.

I brought this thread back up to warn others in the Denver area about the man who presents himself as a marine mechanic. I never got my drive ratio changed this year and I've been fighting since July to get my money back.

The guys name is Steve Graves and he used to have a business in Littleton called the Boat Doctors,(sp?) which closed. He operates out of a shop he built on his property. I think he's also a snap on tools dealer. Anyhow after an endless string of excuses's and sob stories I've still not seen my money. Now I have to decide if I should sue him or not. Even if I win can I collect? I'm not sure about throwing good money after bad. I've talked to a couple of other shops in Denver since this started and I've been told that this is typical for this man.

For you in the Denver area, if you come across Steve Graves, be carefull! My experience hasn't been a good one.

Now I have to decide if I should sue him or not. Even if I win can I collect?
Yes, take him to small claims court. Getting a Judgment is easy, collecting is the hard part. I don't know the Colorado laws as well as I should (I don't live there, but I have a home in Steamboat:D). contact an attorney, a letter stating you will put a lien on his home will get him to pay up. If not put a lien on his home for your satisfaction! You will be surpised it dosen't cost much...

JIM