Hello All,

I originally posted all this up on Donzi.net but thought since I had some questions from fellow members I thought I might introduce myself and share my project.
I was having problem after problem with my traditional drive and was tired of dealing with drive issues and the wife was not having it. So it was either an XR or Arneson. I called and spoke with Rick and even before I bought the unit he was more than willing to help me understand why the Arneson would work on my boat, he really is a very patient, friendly, and very knowledgeable guy, he is a real asset to the boating community.

If you have any questions, comments, or otherwise please feel free to ask.

I picked up a used Bravo conversions asd6 kit and started with the conversion.

So here it goes.

Step 1, adapt my BBF to the Velvet drive.





More to come...

Next remove the engine and old drive.

Next Rick described to put a board under the boat so that the stand off box is about 1" above the lowest point of the boat. basically you dont want the box dragging in the water. If it does, it will push the bow down. Mark the top and bottom of the box and make sure that everything clears and should work. Later we will makes sure the next unit is centered.

To make sure the box is centered I made a paper template of the exact box and marked the centers of all the holes. Then I center punched the stud holes and prepped to drill.

I made a jig to drill the holes perfectly square to the transom, all worked out great.






I used the inner motor mount for a template of what I will probably need to cut out for the transmission to fit.

Next I needed to move to a crank mounted water pump because the original was mounted in the drive. Being a 460 I didn't have a lot of options so I made everything that I needed.

I cleaned up the bilge while I was at it.


Then I started mounting things up.

Next I wanted an original equipment look for the dash and other stuff so I fabricated a piece to hold the Char-Lynn behind the original steering mount. It looks factory, and I'm happy.

Testing on the trailer
https://youtu.be/T0fssv-53Ok https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0fssv-53Ok

Next was on the water testing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4ZIDJ03-ZQ