Destroyed Bravo 3 upper unit
 

Love this site - just pulled apart my B3 upper due to no forward gear. This is what I found. Anyone have this happen? Boat is a 2004 Cobalt 360, twin 496's 375hp. Also the lower forward gear race split in the middle and spun on the housing.


http://i61.tinypic.com/23ha7ba.jpg

Pretty common failure. And why I think drive showers only address a very small part of the issue, not gonna save the drive

I recently rebuilt a 2006 Bravo XR that had the clutch shaft broke almost identical to yours, I installed an upgraded shaft that is running great so far
Is your drive repairable

No- I ordered all the bearings and races, when I went to size up the boss in teh housing for the inner race, the race slid right on. Upper unit is junk. I am going to swap my gears over into another housing I have. Next spring I will be installing 2 new Bravo 3 X drives. I'm in awe this happened. Anyone have a reason for this type of failure? I'm also shocked to hear an XR did this. I thought the X and XR drives were much more robust.

The XR shaft broke on a 2006 29 Fountain w/single 525 EFI, ,he said his drive jumped into neutral at 60 mph, then jumped back into forward gear ,next time he tried to plane out he snapped the shaft, probably cracked it when it jumped gears.

You're shocked that all your engine torque going through a shaft the size of a teachers highlighter to a pair of props pushing a heavy 36' boat broke? It's the same shaft on all bravos. Doesn't matter if it's x, xz, or xr

Yep

The only thing that an x might have saved you was the case....they have a steel tower in the case that can be replaced.....the rest of it is basically the same junk

I would do the Raylar upgrades on the motors and put B Max uppers on

Hmmmm - maybe a set of blowers too!!??? LMFAO :eekdrop: