I'm replacing the upper gears in my Bravo 1 and going from 1.36 to 1.50 ratio. My drive is a 1998, SN 0L750627, and my new gears are the post-SB 2001-17 style.

Everything has gone together fine up until installing the pinion gear, I replaced the pinion bearings with new ones but the pinion depth will not set right. I replaced them straight up with new bearings and races of the same Timken P/N, but I noticed that Mercruiser sells a full bearing kit P/N 31-86763A2. Did Mercruiser also change this bearing stack for the new style gears? I noticed that the new pinion is shorter than the old. Is that the bearing set I need? Or am I looking for the answer in the wrong place?

EDIT: to clarify, the pinion is too deep. It seems like the shims are wrong.

Did you install the 50k thinner thrust races required when using the new style gears ?

Yes, I used the thin shim races from the SB. Are the cases different between new and old style gears?

Case shouldn't matter.

Is there a shoulder on one of the races of the pinion bearing your using ?

What is the pinion depth? You say it is too deep, by how much? You can use the new style pinion bearing that has the spacer built into the race on the front bearing and use the appropriate shims to set the pinion depth. But that bearing is expensive. It should fall into place with the parts you have. Give us more info, please.

Dick