Bravo XR steel tower inside case
 

The Bravo XR has a steel tower inside the case correct? Is this steel in the upper or lower or both?

The Bravo XR has a steel tower, to my knowledge, in the upper only. The tower is pretty small. A few companies such as Max Machine Worx will put a full length tower in it. The MMW tower goes all the way to the bottom of the upper unit.

The bravo X, XZ, and XR have a factory steel tower. It's a little confusing as the word tower makes you think of a long steel structure, when in fact it's basically just the base that the upper clutch shaft rides in. This steel tower is still much stronger than the normal/previous aluminum design.

Like stated above, Max Machine has a tower they install that is a long steel object that actually distributes the load and braces/brings further strength to the upper case.

Here is a comparison between the different towers. The top one is a stock XR tower and the bottom is 3 different ones.
[img]blob:https://www.offshoreonly.com/d720c016-b383-4a6b-84b5-0ce21db68bfb[/img]
[img]blob:https://www.offshoreonly.com/bb41a043-c172-486e-9cde-bd95de16e4ec[/img]

Thank you, I’m asking because I’m having a shop overhaul my XR. I would normally do this type of work myself,( long story) so having a shop do it is sort of an uneasy feeling. I blew my XR lower and ruined the lower case. The shop is going to have to replace the case, probably with some used one they have laying around..... I was worried about the lower case they use not being as strong as my XR case.

There’s a few things to consider with the lower. One would be are you putting a sport master or standard lower back on? The case should be fine strength wise as long as everything looks good. If you can I would go and look at the bare case before they do anything to it. Look for any small cracks or heavy wear marks on both the outside and inside. As well as all of the bearing surfaces, if these are even slightly marked up then the bearings likely won’t last a season.

There’s no difference ( other than water pickups) in lower cases for quite a while now, the case used is the 8866A64
p/n

The only difference is in the internals.