The Ghost

Hey Guys I have two questions if somebody can help? I have a 94 38 Fountain with stock 502/465hp and Bravo 1s...I have owned the boat for 5 years and never had a problem with the drives I have Eddie marine showers on them. I am very gentle with the boat i take off as easy as possible and rarely come out of the water and typically only go about 35-45mph. Aside from greasing and changing the gear oil is there anything i can do for some more preventative maintentance. I once heard about rotating the drives? Is that true and if so, why...

Perlmudder

I believe it rotating the drives has something to do with the pressure on the top cap and the evenly wearing the gears. Nice to see another person from buffalo, we were just down in Crystal Beach boating all weekend. It was great!

seafordguy

I am no expert on anything but since Bravos can spin either way people rotate the drives so that the gears wear evenly since the drives are spinning in opposite directions when you swap sides you wear differently.

There is some debate on whether this is smart or not because people fell that once something is "broken in" that it "settles" into a groove and swapping sides will cause additional wear and consequently additional "stuff" floating around in your drive casing (small metal shavings, etc...), as well as possiby changing some stress points.

I don't rotate mine.......

rhinoLX

I always suggested rotating the drives for our customers. Some got extreme though to the point of changing them back and forth every race, not good. The main benefit is to the lower as they are all "straight cut" gears. The upper benefits to a point also, not due to stress on the cap but because you are loading the opposite driven gear. The drawback on the upper is the drive gear is still wearing on the same side. Read "worn surface running on "new" surface. With the 19/16 XR gears the pinion is available separately.

PS. I hope you are not running that old "flat" Mercury cap. It has an aluminum tower (1994) and it flexes along with the case (even the newer ones with steel towers). Order the later ribbed cap from Mercury. It is more than strong enough for your needs. There is a version for rear tie bar mount and without. The built in tie bar mount unit needs additional parts to use rear tie bar mount.