Bravo outdrive input shaft spinning resistance
 

I'm in a process of replacing bravo one for bravo 3 on my boat.
Had bravo 3 for a month or so, cleaned, repainted, while i waited to pull the boat out.

Yesterday I pulled bravo one from the boat and I realized I can spin input shaft on b1 in neutral with one finger, while bravo 3 need good grip with whole hand and some force to spin.

Since both upper are same with the exception of ratio 23x30 b3, 27x32 b1

But force required too spin it is much higher then difference in ratio.

This is my first time working on bravo, so I don't know how freely it should spin, but I assume one of these two is not working properly.

Any thoughts?

The rolling torque is 6-10 inch pounds for new pinion bearings and 3-8 inch
pounds for used bearings for all bravo drives, this doesn’t include rotating
force required to turn any of the driven gears

Were both drives in neutral when you checked this?

Yes both drives were in neutral, I tried to rotate im gear as well, i can feel little more resistance in gear on bravo 1, but still can press on yoke with single finger and it rotates.

On bravo 3 it's pretty tight, so couldn't feel the difference, but even with neutral couldn't move it without grabing the yoke with whole hand and twisting pretty hard.
I knew bearings preload is supposed to be few in-lbs, this requires significant more force to spin.

By the look at the spanner nut i can say it was opened before, could it be that someone torqued the hell of the nut at the end of shaft?

What will happen with these is if the bearings are set on the light side and as they wear/ loosen up, the’ll lose the preload and the washer that goes between the input shaft/ u joint yoke end and the front pinion bearing cone gets loose and will randomly spin( under acceleration/ deceleration and on the yoke side, it will basically machine this contact surface area of the washer, making things even looser

Ive seen this multiple times and a byproduct of this is black gear oil from the removed metal.

Drained the oil, from my drive (one that spins easily), around 100h since last change, color is dark blue/green slightly darker then fresh fluid.

B3 oil was black, I don't know when it was changed and which oil was used.

Watched couple of videos where people did service the drives, and when they grease the spline yoke moves a little bit, on this b3 i need to clean my hands to spin it otherwise it slips and i cant grip it. Not sure if over tightening the nut could cause this much friction. Started taking it apart to see how it rolls on its own without spinning other two gears.
If that's problem I guess i should replace bearings/seal/orings and use in/lbs dial to set the resistance to correct value.
Didn't open my yet, but on this one cone cluches look new. So I assume it was recently rebuild and somebody just torqued it too much.

Bolt it on and run it. You will love it. Keep Bravo for a back up😃

Something is not right with this drive.
Removed top cap.
Removed back cover
Removed shifting mechanism
Removed spanner nut
And shaft is not going out, no matter how hard I pull.
Am I doing something wrong.
I followed the steps in manual 28.

Planning to assemble my upper with b3 lower to install on a boat 2.0:1 would work better for props I have anyway.

But want to assemble second set b1 with 1.65:1 as a backup drive.

The spanner nut is all that is holding it in

take a pry bar or screw driver that will fit between the input shaft
yoke and the u joint, wack the bar on the side opposite of the handle
with a hammer and see if that gets it to come out

Tried with largest pry bar I could fit inside yoke, no luck.
Tied ratchet strap to yoke, drive is on a wood pallet. Pulled drive pallet and myself together, but it didn't move at all.

Removed ujoint to get spanner nut out of the way.
Thrust washer is moving a little if i poke it, but bearing assembly is stuck in case.
edit:
Pulled it out finally. Inserted one ujoint thru the yoke, pry bar, peace od 2x4 underneath and rubber mallet.
Now just to get a set of new bearings/seal/oring and new ujoints