These were cryoed, polished.. etc.. lasted 25 hrs.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...xzgears002.jpg

That looks like a Bravo 1 or 1X hypoid cut gear instead of a straight cut XR gear. What was the engine power that broke it?

Back in 9-20-2006 zt260 said that he had nitrided his gears and they were holding up early on.

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/g...eriment-8.html

Does anyone know how well his gears held up over time versus w/o the nitriding?

To make a very long story short.

The gears worked great. They lasted almost 50 hours when I broke a vertical shaft. My bad, I jumped on it in the midrange and snap.

The gears came from Dean of the old Bravo Shop. He turned out to be a real snake, but back then he treated me well. I guess I was his guinea pig.

When the gears came out they were still in good shape, but damaged from the vertical shaft. Dean said he tested the nitrite and it was under ¼ worn so theoretically it might have lasted me 100 or more hours. Bear in mined I kill cryoed gears in about 25 hours.

He told me the process was expensive like $700, but it would be worth it to extend a gear set 4 times its normal life. The big problem is Dean would not tell me who did it and said he could never get them to make anymore for him.

I think the process has real potential if someone can do it properly.

Dave,
If I remember our conversations, you have successfully gotten 2-3 times the gear life from your lower after you had them treated by Dick. Considering your power level, not bad at all.
...... Just want to add my experiences on this...
I too have had similiar experiences with treating of xr gears, both upper and lower. First the upper...I had an old set of uppers treated, that lasted a very long time. Then the pinion finally wore out and took out the forward gear. I put a new treated set in, wore them out in 1 season. After I threw up a few times , I ordered an SCX upper. Kept my SC lower. Ran the SCX this season. Due to ocean conditions, not a real good year ( a lot of wind ), but managed to get 50+ hours and 950 miles on it. Tore the upper completely apart this winter. From what I saw, forget about worn out, there wasnt even any signs of wear! Thats $2k the SCX saved me this season from buying a new set of XR uppers.
On to the lower. As I said, I am running an SC lower. I have had success with getting multiple seasons from a set of treated lower gears. Of course, the main 2 things are still set up and driving it right.
I have also set up drives with treated gears ( keep in mind, older XR upper gear sets ) with great success in a friends 35 Sonic with 575's

From my personal experiences, the treatment seems to work as long as the gears you are treating are not a bannana to begin with.

Any comment from Merc on premature failures of current XR gears
 

Has anyone discussed the premature failures of recent production XR gears with Merc?

Tried. You can't get through to anyone who really knows the product. These morons they have answering the phone now don't even know what a water pressure sensor is....

And if you do get through or know someone who can, I guarantee you the response will be pacification at best.

They don't care. It will just be blamed on neglect and user's lack of knowledge and experience (which in normal cases is often very true).

My problem is the choice's that I'm left with.

1. Fix it so it breaks again very soon and may not be so lucky next time it goes...

2. Put a smaller set of gears in it which would defeat my purpose of buying an XR to begin with. Could have saved the money and bought an X or kept the two I just practically GAVE away!!!

3. Dump the XR drive all together and then figure out some way replace this product with something in it's "class". But there really isn't anything else for me which is why I bought it to begin with.

I'm right there in that power and torque range where I need / want a drive that is a little better than a regular bravo. I wanted some cushion so I can play a little hard and not worry.

I realize I sound like a little b_tch but I'm pretty butt-hurt over this. I'm pretty well stuck and can't get out of it without WASTING a fair amount of coin.

I have yet to begin my search for the same gears from another vendor yet. No sense in taking it apart until I'm ready to finish something. If I find anything I'll be sure to share.

If any of you have friends or close ties to Merc, I'd appreciate any help or info.

My Question Is This:
 

Approx how many owners out there have the later model XR's and haven't had this problem?

There has to be a bunch. By "later" I mean late 2005 and up to 2010.

Consider how many Fountain 35's were sold with 525's in them. Every single one of those boats had the same vintage XR's on the back except custom orders where they asked for ASD's or some other expensive upgrade.

And that's Just the fountains I see.

All the other manufactures combined?? There's gotta be several thousand XR's with these same gears in them and they have not ALL failed.

Just something to think about...

ICD, I'm not sure what to say about your issue. However, I used two of my X's like pack mules before I upgraded to the XR.

I mean, with NO exaggeration... I beat the absolute snot out of those two drives. Took a long time to break.

And the 2nd one only broke due to my decision to over-prop the boat for too long.

I was going to send the prop in for work but I was using the boat 3 - 4 times every week and just put it off.

I knew it was over-propped and it finally broke the shaft. But I think it would still be going had I been more diligent about propping it correctly, sooner...

My upper X gears only broke when I over proped with a 26P5X and ran it hard.

So your 'second' X drive failure was a shaft and not the upper gears. Assuming the 'first' X drive failure was gears, how many hours before it failed and what prop were you running?

Would you consider returning to a Bravo X drive as an option?

I'm actually trying to remember now. I remember it "sticking" in forward gear. It saw a lot of air time. I was always quick on the throttle but back on it pretty fast and hard after re-entry.

Drove the boat like a rental car at the time. It was my fault.

This XR has been treated nicely. Still thankful I caught it before it let go but how much is that really worth now??

The first X drive that took most of the abuse had prob close to 300 hours.

If it makes you feel any better, I've broke both
an XR vertical shaft and a XR prop shaft on one drive.

So, again, the other XR components used arent indestructable
either.

I basically know what I did to it when I broke the propshaft
( running at the shootout, hard acceleration and trim issues)

Replacing a shaft is easier to stomach than replacing a XR upper gear set, which you dont know how long it will last.

I've come to the conclusion of yearly inspections, and
frequent magnet checks are how you have to deal with
these things.

I hear ya. I've not had this drive for more than about 8 months. There's no way it would have run for a year in this case.

The XR prop shaft is the same as a Bravo I on the "other" end. The splines were twisting on the one inch shaft so they made it 1.25 in the prop load area and left the rest the same!! (talking about the end that goes into the gear)

The XR is really a band-aid. At least from my perspective.. Artificial sense of additional peace of mind.

80 - 100 hour tear downs seem to be a good call.

I should be on the water right now. Weather has sucked azz this year.

:angry-smiley-038:

What prop was on it most of the time and what prop was on it when the upper X1 gears failed?

Would you consider returning to a Bravo X drive as an option?

I had a stock 28 behind the stock 496 with excessive wake jumping etc.

Regarding going back to an X - I don't know yet. That's basically what you're doing when / if you put X gears in an XR Case.

If I choose to go back, it's cheaper to put those gears in my drive then to get another X Drive from scratch..

I really want that ASD-6 Conversion. That's the ONLY real solution. Forget all this 90 degree crap.

This way, I can break my crankshaft.

:kiss:

Oh.

I thought that the 300 hours with the X1 gears was with your current 600hp+.

How many hours did you run X1 upper gears with the 600hp+ w/o breaking the gears and what prop with that?

Have to look in my laptop to be exact. I ran a stock 30 with the 600 on the 1.65 X Drive for at least another 350 hours. Until this year, I've averaged 300 - 400 hours per year run time.

Been through a lot. Drives, props, other parts. It honestly doesn't seem to matter to me regarding hours. Problem is, I'm at a power range where there really isn't a solid direction to go in unless you wanna put a surface drive on it.

Chit breaks. Bottom line.

I ran an X drive with about 600 HP for 700 hours before I noticed a small amount of metal in the oil and could detect a high pitch noise that was new. Went back to my old B1 as a backup before anything came unglued. I did have some good power in front of it but on a fairly light hull in comparison to what some are running, Baja Force 235.
Back when I made the decision to go with an XZ vs an XR longevity was my concern. XR a little stonger but probably weaker when you have a lot of hours on it. XZ a little easier to break with high HP but hard to wear one out.

So then~350 hrs with an X1 1.65 drive and a B30 running the piss out of it and did not break the X1 upper gears but failed a shaft. That sounds pretty encourging for X1 upper gears and 600hp versus the current XR gears at least for the 1.65.

Is your XR drive a 1.5 or 1.65?

XR 1.5 They don't make a 1.65 XR.

1.65 ratio is more of an "altitude" thing..

700 hours with X1 gears and 600hp. Excellent! What is the XZ's drive ratio? What prop did you run for that 700hrs?

1.5 with a 27 Mirage Plus. Just took it easy on it and did not feed it much boost until up and on plane. I think one of the reasons it lived so long was my drive cooling. I have a Simrek (?) drive shower. When I had a supercharger I installed a crossover with a home made pressure relief setup that consisted of two valves, one blew off at 7 psi and the other around 14 or so. The discharge for these were T'eed into a 1" fitting that exited the hull above and center of the top cap. A HUGE amount of water is being discharge to the top cap a via the drive shower. The water would hit the top cap and splash back up against the underside of the swim platform and in general splash anything exposed back their. After hard runs you could not detect any real temp difference on the uppers vs cruising. That and 25 hour oil changes probably helped it along. I did break my XZ in with a 21 pitch prop for 10 hours then took it easy for an additional 10.

Very good and encouraging info. My hull is 3700# same as yours. My drive temperature during extended WOT running is 270F+ with the factory installed drive shower (not very good one). I ordered a Simrek Halo MAx drive shower last week. I had previously tried a temporary 5/8" hose sea water bleed off from the closed cooling sea water system dumping onto the top of the drive but did not seem to help much.

What drive lube did you use?

Didn't you maintain the 1.65 final drive ratio with the XR by using the appropriate lower drive gears?

What kind of a drive shower do you run?

No - I've owned 3 drives by this time (2 x 1.65, 1 x 1.5).

The Latham 5/8" shower that goes into dead center of top cap.

Im just asking a question im doing a major upgrade in power and was wondering if i bought all the parts that are in this upper is it a good idea. I have a 35 outlaw with merc 525 with stage 2 whipples boat weighs about 9000 with fuel.
http://teaguecustommarine.com//store...roducts_id=936

You're buying all the same parts that are in the regular XR. Teague doesn't make any gears or the like. I personally think the IMCO SC is a better choice than Merc anything in this size/capacity. I just spoke with them about a possible better alternative for mine.

Same gears. The newer XR has addressed all the same characteristics of the Platinum Drive. Better top cap... They were not able to explain to me how it's any better than what I have. Perhaps I got the wrong guy; I don't know about that.

thats what I needed to know thank you :drink:

Don't take my word for it. Do some searching and asking. Ask someone at Teague to explain how theirs is better than the standard XR.

You may find something I missed.

One Thing I AM Sure Of -
 

This is the BEST and CHEAPEST way to go.

Sell your Latham Steering Kit for maybe $3500.

Sell good used bravo x for maybe $3000 + or - .

Put it all towards a negotiated price for this:

http://arneson.site.aplus.net/page.p...ravoConversion

THEN YOU ARE DONE SCREWING WITH THIS PROBLEM.

ok I will do that. I was reading the features and saw that they claim it could hold 900 hp and thought just maybe there doing something differant. thanks again for your help.

I talked to them it was about $21000 per side for asd 7s

Yup... I think you can get the ASD6 kit for around $15-18K, but they're definitely not cheap.

I used to agree with what you guys are saying.

But what's "cheap"? The endless continuation of replacing gears IF, IF, IF you're lucky enough to catch it before it breaks which we almost never get to do???

I'm not committed yet by any means but I guarantee you that after you've had a few serious failures and repairs along with or replacements, that 18K is really not THAT bad at all.

You think I've not spent that or more already?? Many others have spent far more than I have.

It's the cheapest way to deal with it. Crunch your numbers. They don't lie.

What about the cost effectiveness of the IMCO SCX with the bigger upper gears

I can't believe you would toss that in but here's the only way I can see it just being honest.

1. SCX - huge money - like 17K +
2. Must buy the IMCO HD Transom Assembly (WAY more than Merc's transom)
3. Must Pull your engine to install
4. Fill all transom holes that IMCO does not require where Merc, Latham, Mayfair etc did...
5. Still stuck with two 90 degree bends that need ongoing, expensive and time consuming maintenance along with lots of oil, seals, tear down and reassemble..

To put an SCX on my boat would cost way more than going with the ASD-6 and the maintenance is exponential.

It does not pencil to compare the two. There is no easier, less problematic, cheaper way to push a boat once you compare it to some version of a direct drive like Arneson.

Even if you put Merc #6's behind mild power you still have the maintenance and all expenses associated with a sterndrive. It's apples to oranges in my view.

6. Don't forget that unlike the XR and Imco SC, the Imco SCX eats a LOT of power so when you have a little 600 like mine the SCX is going to slow the boat down tremendously compared to XR or SC.

It's just not worth it; for me anyway.

But hey; I'd love for someone to show me where or how I'm figuring this wrong. Even if I'm off on the price of the SCX, I'm not off that much in terms what the hole project and purchase prices would be.

And Let's Not Forget...
 

With any sterndrive, you still have a lot of exposure to the environment and elements that a surface drive does not have to deal with.

Also, they may have changed but NONE of the Imco products I have seen had any active or passive cathodics on them so you are totally screwed in salt.

You'd have to design and rig your own bondage system, grounds...

I don't want something quite a bit better. I want something where I can turn a blind eye for a while.

Take care of your trans; watch the rubbers and bearings; the ASD will watch out for you.

Off the soap box. I sound like an ASD sales whore. Think they'd offer me commission?