Bravo Drive Gear Lube Analysis Labs
 

What oil analysis labs out there might have done more testing on drive gear lube than the rest. I have already contacted Blackstone Labs and they do not have much. I plan on starting drive gear lube analysis to track drive gear wear versus the lube oils I try and I want a lab that has a bigger data base on drive lube oil as a reference.

If anyone has personal drive lube analysis history that they would not mind sharing that would be appreciated as well.

Bravo XR is the drive of primary interest.

Thanks

ttt

Still looking. Anyone?

Tuff crowd Rage sorry i cant help either

i would think change it seasonaly, but check for water and metal particles in fluid thru season. might check bobistheoilguy website.

Buy a decent microscope and some specimen slides and start your own. Any of the good truck stops oil change centers will do a spectral analysis for you, again- you've gotta start your own book. There really isn't enough of a market in the drive lube category for any of the specialty labs to have a real category for it.

Biggest thing you can do for yourself is to check it twice... Once before you run it, and once after you run it. How long before you check it is gonna depend on how hard you beat on it. Merc oil lives a long time in a stock application, but won't live an hour in my boat under power. Just some food for thought.

After spendIng years trying not to break drives and looking for fixes or reasons for the failures I have figured a few things out. Bravo's will break. You solve one thing something else will break. The design just has inherent flaws. You could analyze the hell out of the lube but for what. Amsoil, royal purple, Lucas, even merc are all pretty good. It's what we do to the drives that wears them out. Now that you can used buy drives for a couple grand they become disposable. The horse has been beat down, shot and sold for glue. You will spend a bunch of money analyzing oil to find out your breaking your bravo.
Now if your doing this for personal knowledge have at it. I think you will find that the best oil suspends broken bravo parts better than the cheap stuff.

i send mine to blackstone, but really with drive oil you can pretty much tell by looking at it if the drives are healthy or not.

Bravo's produce metal as they age, all there is to it.. From the first time you turn the input shaft metal is wearing off gears until they break in. Then if the preload goes a little lose the pinion thrust washer spins and makes the pencil lead on the magnet stuff. Then the gears start to pit and you flakes and junks.
Best thing is to change if often to try and keep the amount of particules out of the tapered bearings that are preloaded..
Just my observation..

Dick