XR Driven Gear Problems
 

Hey Guys,

Broke two teeth off the driven gear on my starboard drive. Has less than 20 hours on it since complete top to bottom rebuild. Mechanic is not the problem.

Any ideas on what could have caused this?.

What does Merc do for guaranteeing their parts??

Thanks

Sorry to hear but I don't think Merc will do anything UNLESS the repairs were done at a Merc Dealer.

The dealers (sometimes depending on status) can push in the right areas with the right person and maybe get some help.

But if you bought the gears and had your own guy or yourself do the labor then you are basically on your own.

There is no warranty for gears bought over the counter regardless.

Know how ya feel!

There is no shortage of XR Gear problems on here..

Sorry bud, you wont get anywhere with Mercury. If it was a less common occurrence i would say that you might have a shot, but that failure is pretty commonplace around here.

Guys, here is my experience, and we sell a lot of Mercury parts.

All Mercury parts (with a few exceptions) are warranted for 1 year regardless of who does the install. Having said that if the failure is caused by improper installation or abuse the warranty will be void.

If a dealer did the original instal & subsequent repair then labor is covered also, otherwise no labor but the parts are still covered.

The hi-perf stuff gets a little touchy. Things like racing, putting an XR behind 800HP, modifications,etc. Running without lube is a no-no.

If the gears are behind a stock Merc engine and are less than a year old and were properly installed I don't think you will have a problem. Regardless of the engine if the prop shaft and vertical shaft in the lower are also twisted then the word "abuse" will come up.

All work was performed by a Hi Performance Merc Certified mechanic who also purchased
all the parts.

Drives are on stock 600 SCI's.

Is it up to the mechanic to make the claim to Merc or should I persue it myself?

Thanks

The claim has to be processed by an authorized Merc dealer.

How can you get parts like gears warranted (parts only) when they typically say "if you installed it we don't know if it was done correctly"?

Just curious how to pull that off because I got caught up in this exact scenario. Would be nice to know the choice words..

Of course his certified tech can get on the phone and pull for him but what would you do without that card?

My experience in returning to dealer with broken parts is that you're on your own unless you have a friend.. and it depends what it is too. Gears have to be shimmed, backlash set etc... so they always use that.

+1 on that

I'm saving up for some IMCO SCX uppers!!

Exactly!! That is MY next drive purchase.

MBam, how would merc know if shafts were twisted, drive nhad too much hp in front of it etc IF there rep wasn't doing the work? I have never evemn tried to get any merc parts warrentied, Smitty

Smitty,

I think in the end those gears will fall under one of the "few exceptions" he's talking about.

But for all our sake, I'd love to be wrong. Should be interesting when they send it up the pole.

So far, never heard of a dealer being willing or able to warranty drive gears that were not installed onsite by their people.

For me, the grey area is the fact that he has a merc tech do the work. If the tech is in good with company he may be able to pull one over but according to Merc any gears bought over counter and installed by consumer has no warranty (for obvious reasons).

Best of luck. Hope to hear how it goes.

Still Waiting for photos from my mechanic. He says where gear sheared off that the metal is half light grey and half black. In his opinion a defective casting to start with. He has sent the photos to merc and the "warranty guy" is out of the office until tomorrow.

Unfortunately, when the gear broke off it embedded itself into the case so now my entire upper is junk.

Hopefully they will back up their parts.

Do they resemble these ?

You might be surprised what a company will cover if you have all of your information together. A broken gear will tell you why it happened if you know what to look for (and it hasn't been ground up too severely after failure). Presenting the facts is key.

We have returned failed gears on numerous occasions to a VERY large heavy equipment manufacturer for warranty consideration. Always included is a power point presentation to show our findings and why we believe the gear(s) failed. As yet, none of the claims have been disputed, and the parts have all been replaced at no cost.

The color change in the surface is likely an indication of different fracture stages. Does it mean there was a defect in the part? No. Are pictures from a handheld camera likely to reveal the root cause? No. The initiation point of a fracture can rarely by analyzed without magnification. If your claim is denied based on a few pictures, make sure to get an explanation.

I don't know if any of this will help or not. My point is, it can be determined factually whether on not the gear was defective as manufactured. That said, I've never dealt with Mercury on any type of claim.

I broke an XR gear set after 11 hours so I tried an XZ helical set and they lasted 2.5 hours. The pinion completely stripped. Would have got nowhere with a warranty but I checked the hardness of the gears and the pinion gear was very soft. Bad quality part from Mercury. Sent the paperwork with the hardness readings to Mercury through the rebuild shop and they gave up a new set as warranty.
This did not help with all the other parts I had to replace.
Documentation is the only way to get anything out of them.
With 600SC motors get use to breaking XR’s.
SCX or Bmax is the way to go.

Out of curiosity, what was the hardness of the gear (case and core if you have the numbers)?

Hey Mark, any news? I saw Sunday when I returned that your boat was still not there.

Case hardness on the bad pinion gear was 45.4 HRc and the core was 34.5 HRc. Case should be 60 and core 42.