broken bravo 1 questions
 

So yesterday i took the boat out for its final voyage for the year and ended up with only reverse on the port drive. I had been cruising at 50 for a few min waiting on the oil temps to come up all the way, increased speed to 74 and then after about a minute at that speed port engine hit the rev limiter. I pulled the sticks back and found that the port drive had reverse and would hold under power but zero forward engagement. The shifting on it is also notchy now. Sounds like it broke the cones possibly? I pulled the drive and havnt tore it down yet. What are everyones thoughts?

I have a complete bravo one for sale if you need it
Drive has never been damaged and was on a low power non performance boat . The drive was completely disassembled for inspection , all new seals and bearings. Done by MRD. $1400

Your upper is toast.

You blew the floor out of the gear. Very common problem on pre-2002 Bravo drives. Jeff Wurl

I agree, floor broke out of upper gear, it doesn't usually damage a whole lot else, buy another drive or have yours gone thru with newer thick floored gears. I broke the same thing in 2002 on my stock 2000 Baja bravo behind 675 hp when I tried to turn a 28 pitch 4 blade, Smitty

Thanks. Not sure why the gears are soooo much money! U could probably get ppg one off billet gears for not much more! Where is the best place to shop for gears, ill probably just rebuild it myself.

You did not break the floor out the bottom. IMHO What has happened is the thrust bearing has broken and stacked on itself or it has cracked. I just did this two times in one week. I have my drive apart right now and will be fixed in the AM. Bearing is 50 bucks plus labor. If it happens again you need to upgrade your old school bravo to the easy shift " it has a larger bearing that can handle the load a little better "
If you broke the floor out the bottom you would of limped home on one drive and it would made a horrific noise.

If you broke the Floor out of drive the upper housing is JUNK. Buy a new upper if that is the case. There is no floor on the gears the floor is the bottom of the case the gearset rides in. I have been schooled by a Mercury Racing Tech. Bob Shutter. If the floor breaks out the gearset turns and interfears with the side of the drive case and then the damage is catastrophic.

Pull the cover off and you'll probably see total carnage. Lower needs to be gone through to remove all metal particles and check bearings. I'd replace the upper with a new or low hour XR.

It is all speculation, until you open it up and take a look.. Could be alot of things. Floor broken out of the gear is a common problem. I have seen many that do, and the case is usable.. Best to check tower alignment in any case.

Dick

You better go back to school then, I have seen PLENTY of floors break on early style gears (pre 2001 gears) and 80% of the time other than a little metal thru the bearings very little else gets hurt. The SURE sign that this has happened is usually NO FORWARD while still having reverse that functions fine. I have seen this also with virtually no noise, Smitty

Well I no longer have a drive for sale, blew mine today .
Still have reverse but no foward. Worse part is engine rev'd to the moon ( no rev limiter) now I have no compression on 2,4,6 cylinders

I have a good clean upper available. The one sitting on the amsoil case in the second pic. 1.5:1.


http://forums.boatfreaks.org/showthread.php?t=19387

So when this happens again could i swap the props and just take it really easy so i dont have to idle back on one screw?it was a crappy 45 min trip back other than my 5 year old daughter driving the whole way back.

You want all that metal running through the lower? I would say no :D

You did the right thing!! She probably loved driving daddy's boat. And with any amount of metal in the drive, it just gets worse. With the cone seated in the opposite gear the one with the floor punched out, has nothing to locate it.. It could get jammed up and do more damage.. So you did the right thing!
When she is older she will ask you to help her buy her first boat. That's cool too!! :)

Show me where a floor breaks and the tower does not twist and total carnage does not ensue. I guess it depends on what you call the floor. I'm calling the floor were the gear set ride in the case. I think a man that works on mercury racing drives for a living know what he's talking about sir. I have plenty of gear cases to show the two different senerios.

I beleave we are talking about two different descriptions of (floors) I too broke the floor out of a gear and had no colateral damage case and tower where fine, just installed a new gear checked preload and continued to throw large amounts of power to it for 8 years now still ok no case damage. I agree with Smitty because it happened to me.

"I agree, floor broke out of upper GEAR, it doesn't usually damage a whole lot else, buy another drive or have yours gone thru with newer thick floored gears. I broke the same thing in 2002 on my stock 2000 Baja bravo behind 675 hp when I tried to turn a 28 pitch 4 blade, Smitty"
"You blew the floor out of the GEAR. Very common problem on pre-2002 Bravo drives. Jeff Wurl"
"It is all speculation, until you open it up and take a look.. Could be alot of things. Floor broken out of the GEAR is a common problem. I have seen many that do, and the case is usable.. Best to check tower alignment in any case."
Me and the two other posters clearly mentioned the floor of the GEAR, no one mentioned the floor/tower of upper breaking other than you. Do you actually build drives or does your friend? I have broken them that way and worked on/seen other pre xz/xr GEARS shear the floor, a VERY common problem before the stronger gears came out, it circulates metal thru your bearings, can possibly distort the tower but as long as you cease operation the damage doesn't go to far normally. I also sheared the floor out of a xr gear once that was modified for a taller bearing when people started first converting older drives to run XR's
No, putting a left hand prop on and continuing operation would be a BAD idea as Dick mentioned, there is no longer much support to keep the cone aligned and you start circulating metal thru all your bearings, Smitty