Uncle Dave, Frank did my work for several years, the gears in the lower would only last 3 to 10 hours, no matter how I ran the boat. Yes I had my suspicions, but I was to lazy and didn't have the tools to disassemble the drive myself. I always blammed myself, too much horsepower. I bought some tools, I tore the lower apart and found the loose vert shaft nut. That is when I was convinced something was wrong. I loaded up both drives and drove up to Mr Gadgets to have them looked at and repaired.

gpm,im not taking sides but 148 with xr drive,dude what do you expect?that,s why merc makes a 6 drive.i think you need to move to a 6 drive,and all the drive trouble will go away.:throw:

I know they are going to break, I expect it. I just think a new fresh rebuild should be clean, new parts where ever needed and set up right. Look at the pictures of my spare drive, Frank said it was all fresh and ready to run. That would have broke behind a 4 cylinder.

But if someone can prove it was never run then why would anyone tear it down? You'd only take something apart if it didn't work the way you expected right?

Either way, the very idea of running an XR at 148 seems criminal even if you did it in the past without issue. Sorry to hear of anything breaking but you can obviously afford to go 148 in a single engine boat.

I'd chalk this up as part of said cost.

So did you put the drive on the boat and just decide to take it back off and tear it down or did you run it? How did you go about the diagnosis of having a bad drive but at the same time never ran it?

I don't see how Gadgets can "verify" from a distance that it was't run. Regardless of his good rep, how does he know for certain that it was put together with used, bad parts?

Are you saying that the wear and damage did not line up while still assembled? I'm not punching you. Just really interested in some of the details that don't line up.

In all fairness, I rebuilt both of my lower drives a few yrs ago myself. 2 yrs and no problems. The end of the 2nd season while changing the drive oil, the oil should some faint signs of metal (copper). The other drive was perfect. Chaulked it up as wear and ran all last summer, again with no problems. Then last fall while changing the oil, it was dark in color. Gadgets and another member both stated it was running hot from bearings or gears failing. So I tore it down. The verticle nut on mine also came loose. (I used new nuts and I triple check every thing when I did the rebuilds) I assume between the nut rubbing on the prop shaft and the pinion gear now free floating, was creating the high temps, which in turned sucked water in the drive past the seals, pitting the bearings and gears. The drive held pressure and vaccum before the tear down. My parts looked exactly like the ones posted by GPM. When the drive was removed and spun by hand, only then the roughness was felt. I wouldn't say 100% that the nut wasn't tightened in GPM's case here. I know mine was, and I'm just running stock 502's.

Seems odd why a shop would risk assembling a drive in that condition. Too many things wrong with it to have never been ran, or just never torn apart in the 1st place.

How was it determined this drive was never ran, new gears with no wear signs?

OK, let me see if I can clear this up, I had Frank do total rebuilds on both drives. I like to run the one with the Imco lower as my primary, the XR is my spare. When I found the loose vert shaft nut in my Primary drive I took both drives to Mr Gadgets for inspection. Yes I drove from Pittsburgh Pa. to Holland Mi. The only NEW parts Mr Gadgets found in my Spare drive were the lower gears with NO Wear signs and 1 new bearing. I'm guessing you've seen the pictures of the rest of what was in my spare drive. This really isn't about the vert shaft nut, it was just the deceiding factor in going somewhere else for service.

did you use loctite on those nuts?

Wazzup ? I'm not one to take sides on neg posts but Frank built me a xz drive 3 years ago and it took every thing I could throw at it. I hit a log this weekend that witch ended its life. So im having Frank build me another one. The x drive I ran before his only lasted a year and that was NEW ! If I have a problem with the work, I go to the MAN HIMSELF !

Big toys for little boys
 

GPM what a f..ing child you seem to be. If that were my drives and my money and everything you said was true I would have drove to Frank's Marine with my drives and demanded and explanation and dealt with it face to face and made sure he made it right. Posting pics from your little digital cam that i am sure your mom bought you for x-mas and telling a story so you can try and gain someone to back your weasel ass up is a joke!! I am not taking sides either way here but for anyone that reads this GPM's story and immiedately backs him up must be in the same sissy category as GPM himself for posting it. Get all the facts your ignorant morons before you take sides. I guess I have been brought up different than GPM and his fellow followers here. I was taught to be a man and deal with things personally. GPM seems to be the type of person who needs help deffending himself.

This is one of many places where folks help each other out from time to time and often a camera does help depending on circumstances. There are some bad shops out there but there are also instances where boat owners want to put blame on shops that are not deserving. It goes both ways. This instance had some flags right out of the gate (3-130mph passes - towing skiers??)

Sounds like the horse is dead now.