Imco SC no forward gear
 

OK, need some help here. Cruising along at about 60 when all of the sudden lost forward in the stbd drive. No noise. Drive still has reverse, prop spins freely in neutral, feels a little tighter than the port drive but no binding, spins smoothly. Where do I start to look? Big weekend coming up.

Drain the oil and see what the magnet looks like,then pull the top cap and see.

I can drain the oil no problem. Do I need to do anything special to replace the top cap after removing it? Can I remove it without removing the rear cap?

Check to see if it just a busted shift cable doesnt sound like coupler scince you have reverse

Pulled the top cap and plug. Lots of metal in both. Need to get this fixed by the weekend? Probly not going to happen?

That sucks fireboat did new motors tear it up

sounds like the cone clutch slipped
since you are in philly I have two imco sc uppers if you are interested

Pretty sure my hammer hand is the issue combined with the new engine power. The acceleration on the boat now is incredable!

Larry I might be interested in those SC's if the priice is right. Shoot me a pm with your bottom line. Having spares would be great to have around! I think the drives are going to be my weak link and I can't afford the SCX's anytime soon.

Yeah, I just pulled mine off today, needs upper gears BAD. Well one upper gear anyway, cant see the pinion gear.

I was hearing a rattle upon takeoff, I thought it was a bad gimble bearing rattling around, pulled the drive off, the gimble bearing is great, but the gears are chattering like a mofo. There was so much play in them that when taking off in low RPM it was chattering bad. I guess 82 hours behind 800hp single vee isnt too bad.

Just got a call from Kurts. Literaly tore the teeth off of the forward gear and imbedded some in the case, split the pinion gear. he thinks the case can be saved but needs some work on it and a whole set of gears etc. Maybe we can get a deal on buying gear sets in bulk? Anyway, looks like the weekend is out. Time to start saving for a set of SCX uppers.

Nobody making a better set of gears? Whats the point of a heavier SC housing if it's the same XR gears? Drained the oil in the other drive that we put a used set of gears in and the magnet had the usual fur on it. I can see that this is going to be an ongoing problem.

damn, mine wasnt that bad, just the usual deep pitting on the drive gear. I dont want to get to the point of spitting teeth off and destroying everything inside. Replacing one drive gear and the pinion gear is enough for me.

I woudl love to bolt on an SCX and be done with it, but dont have $10k to throw around right now.

Bummer!

I was pretty sure it grenaded, but didn't want to be the bearer of such sucky news.

Chris

I agree with this statement. We all know that Imco uses standard XR gears in their SC drives. In my opinion there are 2 main issues with SC and XR uppers. #1 First and and foremost, Mercury has been making some real bad gears. The older gear sets used to get some decent life expectancy. These new gears, you will be lucky if they hold together at all. The lowers, dont seem to be a huge problem. They seem to hold up well. #2.. Most of us, myself included, are overstepping the design of these gears. Mercury never intended for them to be behind 700, 800 ++ horspeower.
Myself, I got tired of eating uppers, so I switched to an SCX upper, SC lower. So far, no issues.

Well the SCX's are the plan but not in the near future. Just have to keep my fist from hammering on the throttles for awhile. Maybe end of next season for the SCX's. I need to regear the lowers to 1:36's this winter so they'll be fresh.

I would love to go with an SCX upper, but just cant throw that kind of money around after this year. Engine rebuild, drive rebuild, work issues, you name it.

Maybe i will budget it in for next year.