Bravo One Fill Level
 

To avoid pumping all of the gear oil into the drive with the POS quicksilver hand pump I decided to pre fill the drive by pouring the lube in before installing the top cap. The question is, how full is full? All the way? Up to the fill plug? Some other level? This drive has the remote bottle on the engine.

Thanks.

Should take 3 qts

DONT POUR IT IN FROM THE TOP OF THE DRIVE,YOU WILL GET AIR POCKETS AND THE DRIVE WONT BE FULL.FILL IT FROM THE BTM,UNTIL THE RES BTL IS FULL,THAT IS WHY THEY MAKE THE [POS]PUMP.

DITTO!!!!!!!!

You have to fill it from the bottom. Taking out the top plug allows the air to escape when you fill it.

X 3 :eek:
Because if you run it the way you filled it , Then this will happen :hitfan: to your drive.

I hate that little pump too........so I bought a $10 garden sprayer and fitted the drive attachment to the end of the hose. Now I buy drive fluid in 5 gallon buckets (much cheaper), fill the garden sprayer, then pump it up and let it fill from the bottom hole as it should. I can fill both drives without re-filling the garden sprayer.

Inspector,
The drive should be filled from the bottom, till it comes out of the upper hole, then install the plug and fill till you see it enter the bottle. Let it equalize and then pull the hose off the bottom. That is the only way to make sure you dont have air pockets, like in the inner gear bearing area.

I have put together a 5gal pail pump if you are interested. Uses quick disconnect fittings for ease of use. Although it is a bit more than the garden pump (I used that for years and got tired of the leaky part) it is a good quality pump and high quality fittings. PM me if you are interested.

Dick

I took a drill pump and hooked the POS tubing with the screw in fitting to the discharge and a piece of garden hose on the suction side. Hook the fittng to the drive and put the hose in the big merc hi perf oil container and fill the drive really quick.

When i read this stuff , It makes my head hurt !

I don't use that pump, but I also have a reservoir to hold more fluid. I take off the top cap and fill it up. Leave the TOP CAP OFF. About every 30 minutes, I go into the garage and look at it. If low, I add more until it starts coming out of the top level plug. I do this about every 30 minutes until I don't see any change in the level. MOST IMPORTANT, I go to sleep, wake up the next day. If it is low, I will continue to put more in. After a while, all the air bubble will be gone. Fill up your reservoir. Run your boat a little and check your reservoir, as it will go down if there were any air bubbles left. I have been doing this for over 10 years with no problems. If you have a reservoir and you are patient, no problem. If you don't have a reservoir, you could be making a big mistake; nevertheless, I had a boat in the past that did not have a reservoir and I still filled it up from the top cap and I never had a problem.

WOW! Why people don't do things the way they SHOULD be done is beyond me. I did a full winterize on 3 boats last weekend from changing motor oil, filters, drive fluid, and antifreeze, and not the antifreeze "kit" but pulled freeze plugs and hoses and filled motor by hand all in about 6 hours. It takes all of 5-10 mins of someones busy schedule to fill the damn outdrive from the bottom, THE RIGHT WAY!!! WOW!

Feel free to fill any which way you like, but just remember when you blow your drive, well...

Stupid people annoy me... Sorry for the rant to those that DO do things the way they should be done to prevent possible problems.

Oh, and by the way, I have a reservoir also like most do.

WOW, there are opinions on both sides of the fill issue. My original decision to try to fill the drive through the top cap was based on two assumptions: First, Mercruiser Engineers would not design the drive so that there were air pockets in the drive (an inverted cone with no way to vent air upward). If the drive had air traps in it, then the fill port would have to be ducted directly to the air pocket and the fill flow would have to be fast enough to displace the air. Depending on the shape of the air pocket, there would be no guarantee that all air would be displaced. Second, since both air and lube are fluids and the lube has a much higher density, within a short time gravity would win the battle and the lube would displace all air beneath it (the laws of physics are a great thing). So, my original question was, How full is full? With the drive cap off where should the fluid level be? I suspect that completely filling the drive would be OK if the overflow bottle is large enough to accept the displaced fluid from thermal expansion. But I do not know this... Again, my intentions were to fill the drive without dealing with the leaky POS Pump and my assumptions are based on Mercruiser Engineers not being idiots... Am I wrong?

Thanks.

WOW you are ambitious, I have never heard of anyone pulling freeze plugs to winterize a boat. I usually use the petcock in the bottom of the block.

There should be a fill line on the bottle, fill it to there and after the first couple times out check it and top off if needed. Bravo drive should take 2 1/2 quarts and Alpha should take 1 1/2.

X2

To answer your question, I'd think the level would be at the same level as were the remote res. fitting check ball valve is. It's located a bit below the cap surface, so it would appear that the drive has a small air pocket under the cap, but then I've never removed the cap while a drive still had lube. I may be wrong here, just thinking where the fitting is in reference to the very top.