HELP with Bravo One - stuck in drive????
 

Anyone have a clue on this one? Someone put my friends boat in neutral while just coming off plane. The idle was prob at about 1500 ish which is about 500rpm higher that it would normally allow you to shift. That motor may have stalled. Not sure in that it happened too fast.

What is for sure is that the drive is stuck in Forward position. The stick won't go into neutral. It comes back only enough to bypass the neutral safety and allow the motor to start, but its starting in gear.

We tried rotating the prop by hand and it's stuck. Is the cone clutch somehow jammed? Any ideas on an easy way to rectify this?

Any help would be greatly appreciated he's supposed to go away on a boating trip in a few days.

Re: HELP with Bravo One - stuck in drive????
 

Sounds like yo have welded the clutch to the races which are part of the gears. If that is the case there is no easy fix, you have to replace the upper gear set, yes all three gears have to be replaced cuase they are a matched set and that's the only way they sell them. To make sure this is the problem, pull the drive and see if you can move the shift link in and out with a pair of pliers if it won't budge the clutch is welded to the gear. You should also do a shift adjustment which has to be done with the drive off on Bravos. By pushing hard enough on the shift lever you have streched the cable and it will probably not shift right once you fix the drive if you don't do a shift adjustment. soory to be the bearer of bad news, but it is what is is.

Re: HELP with Bravo One - stuck in drive????
 

I had a similar problem. Although I did not shift with the rpms high the drive did get stuck in gear. It turned out to be a broken shift arm in the upper drive case. The arm is located under the rear cover on the upper drive housing. It is an easy fix and the new part has been updated to stainless instead of aluminum. Drain the oil and take the rear cover off to inspect the shift arm. If it is ok you have other problems. If it is broke, the drive needs to come off far enough to disengage the shift cable. Then the arm can be replaced. Hope this helps and good luck.

Re: HELP with Bravo One - stuck in drive????
 

While the shift link is a possible cuase of a no shift, he would be able to move the shift lever if it broke and you are not suppost to shift a bravo above about 1000 RPM and even that is a little high, the cone clutch becomes welded to the gear if you do, it's not a matter or it might get stuck, if you shift at high RPM it WILL get stuck.

Re: HELP with Bravo One - stuck in drive????
 

Hey Hillbilly:

When you say welded, are you literally saying fused together? I'm not that familiar with the clutch, but how likely is it that its some how wedged together? Is it possable they could be seperated if they were'nt actually fused together?

Re: HELP with Bravo One - stuck in drive????
 

I had the same problem stuck in gear earlier this year. A bolt fell off the shift arm. Thank god it happend in the driveway on the hose. Bolt did not get in the gears. Put it back on and away we went.

Re: HELP with Bravo One - stuck in drive????
 

If it is welded you can't seperate them and reuse them, there will be huge gouges in the cluth and gear if you do manage to seperate the. The heat of the two pieces being shoved together at high RPM basicaly friction welds them together. When you spin one piece of metal real fast and shove it into another it is called friction welding, that's how they weld the ball ends onto pushrods among other things. There are a few other things that could cuase the problem that other people have mentioned but the high RPM shift indicates what I am talking about. Like I said, pull the drive and see if the controls move freely with it off, if the the controls in the boat move with the drive off then check if you can move the shift link on the front of the drive, if it don't move you need to tear the upper down. Good luck

Re: HELP with Bravo One - stuck in drive????
 

Thanks for your help. We'll pull it today and see what happens.

PS, where is the cable adjustment once the drive is removed? Can't this be done from inside the boat?

Re: HELP with Bravo One - stuck in drive????
 

Yes the adjustment is done from inside the boat but you need some special tools to do it, your best bet it to let whoevver builds the drive do the asjustment as well. If you do want to do the stuff yourself you will need to buy a few tools and a FACTORY manual.