Bravo1 Noise
 

Hi
The last time I went out with my boat, we were beach for a part of the day and when came time to leave I started the boat with the trim way up (forgotten to trim it down before starting the boat) and I heard a knocking sound coming from the outdrive, something like TOCK,TOCK,TOCK.

Needless to say, the boat was in neutral then I trimmed the outdrive down and then shifted forward, the same noise was still there, put in reverse, same noise, while giving more throttle the knocking came more frequent (forward, neutral and reverse).

This knocking is there no mather if I raise or lower the drive and the motor exhaust through the hub, no flaps rattling here

It sounds like a gear that doesn't completely engage or disengage. Any idea how to resolve this?

The outdrive have 275hours on it.
Thank you for your comments

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

first pull drive and check u joints then we can go from there

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

I know that I will have to pull drive out, but why the Ujoint? Even in neutral the noise is there

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

the ujoints are still turning unless its a trs since you didnt say what it is Im guessing its a bravo which shifts in the upper of the drive itself, and running in the trailer or full up position puts aLOT of strain on the ujoints even in neutral



thats why they put a trim limit switch on them and a seperate trailer switch

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

Thank you for telling me about the Ujoints and the way it works, for the drive it's a Bravo1, how about a bad shifting cable, could this cause the same noise. I will check this out as soon as possible

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

no the bravo has whats called a cone clutch which uses friction to engage the gears so highly doubt it would be a shift cable

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

I was thinking of the lower shift cable, if it is binding in the core and not letting the shift cone travel the full length of stroke. Is this possible?

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

still woulnt make noise just wouldnt go into gear, unlike alpha drives the fwd and rex gears are always engauged to the input gear the cone clutch engages the pioion shaft to the proper gear.......hard to explain but this is why you dont hear a bravo shift as you do an alpha

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

And if it is the ujoint the problem, is it expensive to repair.

You are making me thinking of a few times, not recently, when I shifted from neutral to forward or reverse and would say gust in between I sometime have heard a sort of bang or jerking and I could feel it in the handle, this append when I was to slow to put it in gear

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

if shop knows what thay are doing its not hard, what area are you in????

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

Quebec Canada

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

SORRY, I offer moble service but thats alittle far for me, unfoutuatly I dont know anyone out side the U.S.

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

Thank you for all the info, and as soon as get this drive repair, I will post the solution

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

My money is on the U joints as well. They were probably getting bad any way, and having the drive trimmed way up with running probably did one in.

Be carefull if you hear it ever again. If the u joints completely let go, it will most likely destroy a bellow and in comes the water.

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

Never run the motor over 1200 Rpm's with drive raised above trim range. This will over stress the u-joints.
Also critical is to use the L15-1NF factory spec u-joints or Mercruiser permalube u-joints. Anything else will lead to failure and we dont want that to happen.... BBB

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

When the drive was up the motor was only turning about 700 RPM, gust phone the mechanic and they are going to look at it today.

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

let us know how you make out

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

my u-joints were on my bravo 1 were rockwell had a # on them changed them both out for 40.00 ordered them through a local auto parts store and have had no trouble

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

Thank you everyone for giving me the info about that noise.
My mechanic phone this morning and told me that after opening the outdrive, that I will have to change the upper gear kit, since the serial number starts with OL, Merc has change these gear with thicker gears. $ 2600.00 job, this suck specially because I never hit anything and never went low on gear oil and always change it every 50 Hours with a 6.2L engine

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

Its been a while since I checked on gear repair, replacement, but 2600 sounds kinda high to me.... :

Maybe someone else on the board can chime in on what something like that cost,,,hell it may be right

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

Two things are against me, I am living in Quebec Canada and the other is that the drive serial number starts with OL and Merc don't make them anymore, they have a superceded .
Anyway if you feel that I am paying too much, I would like to hear about it.
Thank you

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

where are you getting this merc doesnt make them any more crap ????

if a part is superseded it just means that they refer you to a differnt part # 99.9 % of merc parts have super sesions


trs merc doesnt make any more
the gear set is about 900.00
gear lube 39.95
dissasemble, clean, inspect upper 300
seal kit 100.00
reassemble upper 300

what was the actual damage


if metal present you want to dissassmble cln and inspect lower add another 300.00


im on marylands eastern shore we are not cheap here but 2600 to swap out upper gears is high



this is the gear sets from bams site

Re: Bravo1 Noise
 

Hi it looks like I have made myself misunderstood or haven't wrote properly, what I meant was that number for my serial starting with OL000, the gear kit part number was replace by another one and what I can understand about the new number it is for thicker gears and the price of these are much higher. If you care to take a look at these two links and tell me if I am on the right track, the item number 24 DRIVE SHAFT HOUSING AND DRIVE GEARS and the second one BRAVO GEAR CHANGE
And some metal was found so disassembling, cleaning and inspecting the lower has been done