Offshoreonly.com - Drive strength?

Quote:

Originally Posted by rufusgrouse (Post 3289423)

A physics debate about driven gears, either left or right misses the reality of what happens most frequently in both tr/trs drives; and that is "pinion failure". The smaller diameter of the pinion compromises wear. The surface hardening of any gear only goes so deep. The load against the pinion causes premature wear of the support bearing above the pinion, and this fact complicates the issue. Any repair procedure to the lower gearcase should include replacement of said bearing.

Not sure about that..Sure I agree that the smaller pinion gear is probabally under higher loads then the driven, but I dont think it will cause premature pinion bearing failure. Now not enough or to much bearing preload, that can cause premature bearing failure.

Back to the TRS/Bravo comparison. The Bravo lower and the left hand rotation TRS lower share a lot of similarites. In fact the TRS gears and pinion bearings are larger then the Bravo's, and Bravo's dont usually have pinion failures other then just plain old wearing out.

I replaced my Bravo lower gear set 150hrs ago because both the pinion and driven gears were pitting. Inspected them 50hrs ago and still looked great(going to reinspect this spring). I'm also sending 750HP thru my Bravo's, gear inspecting and replacing is part of the deal.

I'm sticking with bullet thickness and stability being the weakest leak of the TRS, RH rotaition especially.

LAP