konrad drives
 

im kinda new to performance boating, but this season i purchased a new boat that has konrad 540's on it, doing a little research on-line tells me that these are top of the line drives that almost never fail......well i blew one up this past weekend, the boat has 125 hrs on it and this is the 3rd time a drive has gone up??? any input would be great, thanks

What kind of power are you running in front of them?

Yeah, we're going to need MUCH more information than you've offered.
Konrads are indeed well built, rugged, reliable drives but if the setup is incorrect, or if the power being transmitted is above the design limit, or if they have not been maintained properly then like all mechanical things they can fail.

You'd have to be abusing or neglecting them pretty badly though for this to be the case.

Please give more details and we will try to help you brainstorm.

MC

:rolleyes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8E_zMLCRNg

[

Went through 2 myself....

wow get your pocket book out there not cheap

sorry i was just waiting to hear back from them before i spoke, i have one of the nicest 1985 12 meter executioner's ever redone it was built by another off shore only member name "joe tool" i think, here are some pics

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/f...ey-west-3.html

anyway.... the boat was redone in 2009 total referb, 598 zul's making about 740 each, since rebuild when the drives were bought the boat has 120 hrs on it, the drives have failed 3 times, boat has minimal prop slip (they have the #'s) just seems like there has to be a problem that is fixable, not just rebuild every 20-30 hrs...these are supposed to be direct replacements for trs, so whats the issue, this is not a race boat and its under there hp ratings???

What is the torque on those 598's? Torque rating is only 738

Mark

How many times you send yours back Mark....I personally like it when they shipped mine back to me after they failed and I opened the box, took off the foam and my lower unit was leaking right there in the box...I call them up and the excuse I got was that they changed shipping companies and that some must have snipped the metal banding...opened up the box...stuck a screw drive in my lower unit by the drive shaft...then they must have put the foam back on it, and the top and then rebanded and shipped it to me!!!! ARE YOU F"N KIDDING ME!!!!

I would much rather a accepted a "Brian..Yeah somehow we F"d that up and we're sorry" rather that create some Bullchit execuse of a truck drive breaking into my crate.

Nice ride!!! Very clean.
Thanks for getting back. I'm just curious about Konrad threads. I have TRS drives and have a pair of B&M 250's that I might strap on to my 469's next winter. I know it's not will I break my TRS just when will I break my TRS. They have been great for 4 years behind ~600HP NA. I have been using Red Line Heavy ShockProof® it has a film thickness of 75W250. I'm pretty sure it might cost me 1-2mph it is like molasses.

I use to use Royal Purple but something changed in it IMO.

http://www.redlineoil.com/product.aspx?pid=44&pcid=4

I ran Konrads in the gulf on our patrol boats. Hot temps and high water temps. They are tough drives. We would run 10-14 hours a day. Twin Cummings 6BTA's, rated at about 450hp. I saw one fall of at the pier, ROFLMAO, but that was because of the guy who installed it. A boat can go down pretty quick with that big a hole in the back.

i think the motors are rated at 740 hp and 550 torque,
inthetundra if u had the problems im having on your patrol boat you would be rebuilding them every 3 days lol!!!! drives have 120 hrs on them this is 3 rebuild???? oh well guess ill just have to hope they step up to the plate and do the right thing!!!

thanks for everyone's input

If you keep having probs, ill swap you some refreshed trs's for the konrads. ;)

hope you have better luck w/ them. would like to someday retrofit mine w/ a pair.

I'm surprised you had a problem with the company. They flew a rep to Newport before we went over and then he came to Kuwait for a few weeks to help us train some new guys on them.
They are here in Wisconsin about 160 miles from me

treated me great .

well of course they are gona take care of their navy people.... thats their bread and butter, but after spending $46000 on two drives that are blown again after 120 hrs of use, and they want another 10 grand to fix........dont kno about that.........., then "kurt" says the reason they blow is that the nose cone was altered by the original owner, well i contacted the owner "joetool", kurt told him to alter them... go figure just another big company that don't want to own up to the fact they are wrong!!!!

well now it is clear that you are in some way related to konrad Marine so your position now makes sense, First off mike spoke with joe for 45 min tues after noon and joe's says that kurt agreed with the idea of modifying the nose cone, joe also said he would be willing to go to court or send a letter or whatever to that fact...........but in the end thats not even the issue, we asked konrad to please work with us, do something.... help out just a little bit, we were willing to pay something, but they hit us with FULL RETAIL on the rebuild..... if some one over there would contact mike or myself and work something out i would be happy to withdraw any and all posts/complaints that have all ready been filed im more than willing to work something out.......again, its just not right!!!

All I can say is Konrad drives are GARBAGE... I am the original owner of Mike's boat and all I can say is Konrad does not stand by there product. I purchased the drives for $18000 blew up one drive with 45hrs. cost to repair $9000 from Konrad asked why so much and there answer was it was a full rebuild and we repaired it right away for you??? I then asked why it blew and had no answer they said it was either prop chatter or too much slip??? I then asked them if I took the point off the drive and rounded it would that help the slip(NXT drives are rounded in the front) they said try it and see what happens they also said that engineering said that there was plenty of metal in the tip to do it. Well guess what same results did nothing for the boat. After putting more hours on the boat the other drive let go while doing a Poker run in Fla. I had Dollar offshore fix this one for $7500 so now I'm into these drives for over $34,500 not including two engine removals. Thats when I decided to sell the boat thinking it was my driving. I spoke with Mike the other day and he told me he sent both drives back to Konrad last year to have both drives repaired not knowing the cost but I'm guess an easy $15000 to fix that now brings the total up to almost $50000 one the same drives. Mike also said that he just broke another one so what excuse is Konrad going to use this time???????? So dont use the excuse that I modified the drive you should get the facts first unless you do work for Konrad which I suspect because where is Kurt on this?????????????

THANK YOU for the post joe , i think its pretty sad that these guys have treated us the way they have, its just a lill hard to imagine a company that gets that kind of dough and just has no morals at all,
thanks again, joe we will keep you up to date with the lawsuit info as well!!!

"i think the motors are rated at 740 hp and 550 torque"
Most of these big block boat motors make tq pretty close to equal to the hp unless they are real small cubes so I would bet your tq is closer to 750 ft lbs , not 550 ft lbs which is near there self imposed limit of 738 ft bs. Should the drives self destruct at the power your at, I sure don't think so and I would be pretty chaffed too but you have several things going against you, heavy boat, motors near or at the limit of power drives can take and you mentioned low slip numbers so I assume 5 blade props. These things add up to some real drive stress, going to be hard to keep drives together no matter who's they are and then add in the fact that your boat is big enough and heavy enough that you don't have to slow down in the rougher stuff and k-POW. There were some pretty tall claims when they first came out with these trs replacements and bravo conversions that they were on par with #6's in strength (not by Konrad neccesarily but by consumers) and that died down quietly, the first few that failed at the 1000 hp ish level were barely mentioned on here before the threads magically dissappeared , I do believe that they are stronger than TRS drives and Bravos but they are definately NOT indestructable ! Mr gadgets/ Dick Tryce has a friend with a Apache running 750+ hp blower motors and I am told he never lets off thru hardly anything , the guy put the new imcos on it with the heavy duty lowers a few years ago and I hear he has gotten 400+ hours of life from them , might be a solution, Smitty

Until you've owned your own and dealt with them....and I truely me dealth with them...you have no idea what you're talking about....remember my post 9...well these were my drives in the box right after I snipped the band from around the crate....now these were both just redone by Konrad and tested by them...according to them somebody opened the box and from what they said stuck a screw drives in by my prop shaft then didn't take anything and repackage the entire thing with metal band. But at the sametime do you notice the pooling drive oil on the one....the other drive looks great..no oil and you even see the greenish sealant stuff they use between the outer brass lock (or whatever its called) and the casing...yes that was done right.....look at the other and tell me if you see it...NOOOOOOOO NOT AT ALL!!!! Now how can that be after they were just redone...its a quality control issue.....

All I took off the tips of the drives was approximately a half inch and rounded out the rest to feather in. If you know so much about these drives then you tell me why they keep breaking? The engines made 745 horsepower and 740 pounds of torque and the boat weighted in at 10000 lbs. So again tell me what would you have done if you broke not one but two drives and Konrad's scratching there head????? There answer is its out of warranty nothing we can do for you thats nice to hear after I broke two drives and Mike broke three on the same boat. I now own a 2004 38 Top Gun with 725hp. behind it running sportmaster ITS and run it like I stole broke one drive in 4 years and put a new drive on from Mercury and broke it in 2 hours cause of problem put together wrong which tells you that even the factory can screw up.

Guys have been modifying the noses of drives forever and I have NEVER heard of that causing a internal gear problem, I don't own a Konrad but I build my own bravos and I think there is at least 2 or 3 inches of solid aluminum on the front before you ever get near the pinion bearing races and internally machined areas. There is un-doubtedly a different problem , it has always been a big secret when these drives break for some reason so we never have heard the true failure rate and what kinda power it takes to break them. Like I mentioned pretty much every failure thread dissappears but I do remember one a few years ago where the owner of one was being chastised for modifying the housing in some way after it failed and the big mod he made was insignifigant in my opinion , was somthing like he tapped the back of the case for a steering bar or something then when the gears blew up and self destructed everything that was brought up, sure if you bolted somthing to the drive and then the bolts ripped out and it ran out of oil or the housing cracked allowing the gears or races to get out of alignment I would believe it , as far as COSMETIC/HYDRODYNAMIC grinding on the nose , its not causeing the gears or shafts to blow, Smitty

thanks again for all the posts guys im a younger guy this is my first performance boat, im still paying mike for it and its broke, im just a lill disappointed, im just looking for info, my understanding is that the drives also failed at 45 hrs, that was BEFORE joe changed the cone, soooooo whats the reason that happened???its called quality control!!! i spoke with a man local to me that said he had his 540's rebuilt 2 times when they came back the second time he (being he is a boat mechanic) opened them up.... well guess what the he says the pinion depth and back lash was not even with in spec right out of the konrad service manual ????they got there big navy contract so they put there top builders on those projects while joey the apprentice is on my drives .. its just messed up.....and the newest revelation is now they wont even send the drives back to mike and i because they said we have a $1200 bill for shipping and tear down.... i kno its a expensive hobby but stuff like this is over the top and uncalled for....

Ive heard a few horror stories like this as well, really suprises me that konrad is letting this happen, reports like these will kill sales.

So if they are not going to ever warranty them, are you still running the Royal Purple???

How do you feel about Royal Purple Smitty???

I stopped using it in my drives.

Jim Darr......

R/P gear oil is the cheapest crap synthetic out there, I made the mistake of doing most my gear treatment durability testing with it, after spending countless hrs r/ring gears and having them heat treated, cryoed, dlc coated to find longer life etc I switched to Amsoil extreme with a little lucas gear stabilizer treatment mixed in (from the advice of Aaron at max machine worx) and my gear life immediately doubled. I am currently running the neo mix from the Bravo shop but don't have enough time on it to form a opinion (just got motor back in boat for the season and only ran it once), Smitty

Is this the stabilizer? And how much do you add per quart?
http://www.lucasoil.com/products/dis...id=25&loc=show

It's a boat and no matter what you do.......$hit breaks. Why would the manufacturer fix your drive under warranty? Nice try! LOL Just get it fixed and go boating.

About 10-20%, Smitty

I'm not sure what the original poster expects from Konrad but the underlying question is why would these drives that are supposedly premium drives break numerous times in 120 hours at 9000 x 2 $ per rebuild every 45 hours or so, this guy has 750 hp, not 1200. I don't care how much money someone has, your talking 400$ a hour for every hour the boat runs for drive repairs, thats steep for ANYONES pocketbook! If these things break that easy the word needs to get out. So Konrad lowered the rating on them to 738 ft lbs at one point, you would still think that there would be somewhat of a safety margin before the drives will self destruct on a regular basis!

90% is probably poor throttling. :evilb:

Maybe and combined with some big as 5 or 6 blades with low slip?

need more 411
 

I can't believe nobody has asked these questions yet;

What broke on your drives, upper, lower, what is the mode of failure, did they both fail the same way?

From what i've read here we're not getting the entire picture. I've seen alot of drives over the years and usualy they start failing for a reason. I've seen bravos on big heavy boats with big power bravos stay alive for years with proper care and sensible driving. I've also seen light little boats (a Pantera I know comes to mind) with pretty pedestrian HP tear through drives like there's no tomorrow because the owner ran it on the pins all the time. You can break anything if you try or by not knowing how to operate it within it's design envelope.

Won't grinding the nose change the hydrodynamics of the original design? Not that it should affect internals at all, but it will affect how it pulls through the water?
Bought, sold, bought, sold, bought, sold? How old is this drive?

Was this a driveline failure, u-joint?

I hope not, the poster says it cost him 9000$ each plus s/h every time they touch them. I would really like to know whats breaking too!

I've broken a drivline on my Konrads and if it goes at or near WOT and on the long end it does some serious damage. Mine tore out the trany, gimbal housing and input shaft into the drive. I don't want to remember what that cost.... I will say it was no fault of the drive. I let a u-joint go and ran it hard knowing it needed replacing. Konrad was rather gentle on the parts that I needed. I've been through my drives and other than normal wear a tear I haven't noted anything that would point to impending catastrophic failure. All in all a great little drive. It's not indestructable but better than the alternatives in the kw/kg range and price.

Like I said earlier, we're not getting the entire picture. I'm not pointing fingers or taking sides but I have found when everything seems perfectly clear you are not in possession of all the facts.