Brovo I XR drive locked up???
 

Just heading home from my first weekend with my 36 outlaw. Boat has 540 bulldogs and bravo I xr drives 28p 3rd day was letting off slowing down for a couple boats to pass and at around 35mph got into it and boat reved up. Stoped and shifted both shifters around and the left drive went into reverse and is locked up now. Shifter won't come out of reverese and prop is locked Did it break a shaft or teeth or what?

Clutch cone is locked . You need a new upper set . Merc says it's from shifting at anything above dead idle. That's BS , they are just JUNK and can't handle any power.

Probably a tooth. Mine locked up, tooth, and broke the input shaft too. It wasn't nice to the coupler either.

Sorry to hear that you also have the Bravo Blues. It will keep happening so get used to it.

Worst option and biggest waste of money is to keep the bravos, but if your going to you have options

First option, Keep the drives stock and purchase a 3rd drive for a spare so your not down during summer.

Second option, spend extra money to Upgrade your current drives through a shop like Dick Performance Marine (Mr. Gadgets), The Bravo Shop, All American Drive Service, Max Machine Worx. These shops also are great at just rebuilding your drives to stock specs. I personally feel you will continue to break(most importantly prematurely wear out) your drives though even with the upgrades.

Best option is to purchase stronger drives

Best 2 options are

Arneson ASD7 surface drive bravo conversion will be the Fastest and Strongest

IMCO SCX Upper with the new IMCO SCX 1400 lower

Thanks for the info. I do have to shift the boat at about 1200 rpm to keep it from stalling the motors with the 28props. Where is the best place to get parts quickly to get it going for the next weekend? My kids are supposed to go for their first ride. Also can any boat shop fix the xr drive if they are used to a bravo 1? They are just heavier parts correct? Ha. Ha.

It is all speculation until you open the drive and see what broke. Probably a broken tooth on a driven gear, that is common. But you really don't know until it is opened and looked at. The extra strong XR gears have a weak point, the way they are made these days, a tooth can break off, deep into the root of the tooth.
Options are many and depending on how you drive the boat, makes a difference. Although the XR upper gears don't seem to favor any particular style of driving. I personally believe you can go farther with the Helical cut gears, in a lot of cases.
Easiest solution is to go to an SCX. It does cost a sizeable chunk of money, but then rebuilding Bravos one at a time does too.
In your case, get the drive looked at and then you can decide what action to take that best suites you.
Hope that helps
Dick

I agree with the seized cone clutch. Pull the back cover off and you will know. Have a shop that works on performance boats do the work. There are some assembly tricks. Sometimes it is cheaper to buy a new upper. Lower should be gone through but you may get away with flushing it with mineral spirits. I've blown two.

You feel that these are less problems than the straight cut gears? How much power would you feel the XZ drive would hold?

Dick ( AKA Mr Gadgets) is one of the most knowledgeable people on bravo drives. But I can tell you from A LOT of experience that you can not shift a bravo above 800-900 rpm and expect them to last for more than a few hours. Don't waste your time and money into repairing the drive without fixing your idle problem . Even if you upgrade a bravo to handle the power it will still fail from shifting at higher RPM.

From expierence on our boats and multiple friends boats if your going to rebuild the broken out drive rebuild BOTH!

9 times out of 10 the drive still working actually has more worn out parts then the broken one. And will come apart very shortly.

Yes fix your idle issue