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Mercury XR Sportmaster Maintenance

Old 04-23-2019, 11:28 AM
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Default Mercury XR Sportmaster Maintenance

Can anyone recommend proper maintenance for XR Shorty Sportmasters? I have a 35 Fountain lighting with staggered 496 HO, 5 blade Maximus propellers. Currently have about 250-300 hours. Currently no issues, though I would like to do proper maintenance to avoid issues.
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Old 04-23-2019, 11:41 AM
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Originally Posted by Smokin_Joe
Can anyone recommend proper maintenance for XR Shorty Sportmasters? I have a 35 Fountain lighting with staggered 496 HO, 5 blade Maximus propellers. Currently have about 250-300 hours. Currently no issues, though I would like to do proper maintenance to avoid issues.
Keep your u-bolts torqued to the proper level !!
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Old 04-23-2019, 01:39 PM
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Originally Posted by Smokin_Joe
Can anyone recommend proper maintenance for XR Shorty Sportmasters? I have a 35 Fountain lighting with staggered 496 HO, 5 blade Maximus propellers. Currently have about 250-300 hours. Currently no issues, though I would like to do proper maintenance to avoid issues.
I think you are on borrowed time on those. Have you pulled anything for a checkup?
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Old 04-23-2019, 01:42 PM
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At those hours you should remove them and have them inspected by a competent drive shop. I just had to rebuild both of my shorty sportmaster drives at 250 hours on my Fountain. Proper maintenance would be regular fluid changes with a good quality oil.
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Old 04-23-2019, 04:26 PM
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Our process is to check the magnet for fuzz on the drive drain plug. If only a little fuzz we keep going. Mercuriser should have recommended gear lube change interval.
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Old 04-23-2019, 05:40 PM
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You will hear many versions of what to do based upon your question. I posed a similar one a while back. My Fountain has 525's with XR's and at the time 350 hours +/-.

I had one drive that had an issue, did not know exactly what the issue was, assumed the worse case. Magnets were showing a real problem and at 10 or so hours the gear lube was dark, on the other drive the magnets by the way were always clean as was the gear lube. I decided that before the thing grenaded itself I would just replace both with new based on my belief that the cost to rebuild would be close to cost to replace. factoring in a little for some good parts of value. My choice, simple as that. Sold the set to an individual on here that is in fact a Merc tech and he went thru both drives.

Let me take this a bit further. Both drives were in pretty much the exact same condition, both were spent. Both needed everything inside, cases and major shafts were all good, rest was spent. Plain worn out, he sent me pics of them after tear down, not broken up, just worn out. These had the gear lube changed every 25 hours, the magnets showed little to worry about, till near the end with the one. You can not go only by the magnets. If you have a real good drive tech near you, by all means have them checked out. With 496's you are not as apt to tear them up but at your hours it would pay to look. I do not have a Bravo super tech near me, so I replaced mine. A real good drive guy should be able to pull the rear and top caps and give you an opinion as to whether you should look deeper. I am not trying to be the Bravo expert here, I have broken my fair share of Bravo chit, had one lock up so hard that it stopped a 525SC dead it it's tracks at 5500 near 100 mph, had another spit the upper gear set near out of the case, had a fresh rebuild last less than 15 minutes.

Sorry for the broken record here. Bravos are like Kia's, when their time is up, best just get a new one and continue on down the road.

Last edited by RaggedEdge; 04-23-2019 at 05:46 PM.
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Old 04-23-2019, 07:44 PM
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Thanks for the tips.
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Old 04-23-2019, 10:28 PM
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Just recently faced this same exact decision. We have a top gun with 500efi’s. Drives have about 400 hours. We noticed metal on magnets and shifting issue on starboard side. Signs that the drives needed some attention.

fast forward...drives were just torn down. They essentially need everything except cases and shafts. Honestly I can’t complain. 400 hours is damn good time on a bravo.
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Old 04-24-2019, 05:25 AM
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The 5 blade maximus don't help your cause either.
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Old 04-24-2019, 05:55 AM
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This is the best way to see how they hold up
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