How many of you rebuilt your own bravo???
 

a tantrum and I are looking into buying the tools necessary to rebuild a bravo 1. He has blown the upper gears of his drive and mine needs to be rebuilt with some stronger parts. We both feel that this is not going to be the last drive we are going to blow so why not learn to re build them our self's.

From the looks of it in the manual it don't look that difficult. it seem more of having the right tools and patience to follow the directions more than anything. Or is it more difficult than it looks????

Any of you that have or do rebuild there own drive, How successful were you??? and would you trust your self to build a drive for a 600 Hp motor.

I have done one so far, with the help of a friend that is a Merc. mechanic.
The hardest part is the bearings on the input shaft (upper) and the crush washer (lower). I don't think I could do one myself yet without a little help . I put this one behind my 675hp 540 and it made it the season.
I say buy the parts and go for it !

I also rebuilt my 540 for the first time , all myself,(still with a little supervision) and it's still running so far.

I was thinking but I did not trust myself...

-special tools +books + tapes.I made a list then I thougt if I make a mistake?!?

-mechanics do it everyday. I believe experience is the most important thing.

-I had an experience at the beginning .I bought ''how to hot rod bb-chevy book'' ,grinders etc....tried my best but ;at the end I gave up and took the engine to a mechanic. :)

my advice get the tools etc but do the first drive with an expert then try alone..

Drive Rebuild
 

I just did my Alpha for the first time, had to buy an OTC Slide hammer/puller kit, a bearing splitter, needed a two jaw wheel puller, and about $250 worth of merc. tools.. try www.mercstuff.com, and Ebasic power for parts.

Not that bad a job, but you definitely neeed a lot of confidence, patience, and genle moves, as the aluminum housings won't stand any abuse. Yo need good pullers, and the right tools, take your time, and it is a rewarding project.. make sure to pressure test your work before you run it.

My Alph seems to be staying together.. I have acouple of hard hours on it since i got it back together.

Dave

Drive Rebuild
 

I just did my Alpha for the first time, had to buy an OTC Slide hammer/puller kit, a bearing splitter, needed a two jaw wheel puller, and about $250 worth of merc. tools.. try www.mercstuff.com, and Ebasic power for parts.

Not that bad a job, but you definitely neeed a lot of confidence, patience, and genle moves, as the aluminum housings won't stand any abuse. Yo need good pullers, and the right tools, take your time, and it is a rewarding project.. make sure to pressure test your work before you run it.

My Alph seems to be staying together.. I have acouple of hard hours on it since i got it back together.

Dave

Tools are on order.. I will be doing my own. I am tired of the pro's messing it up. I just havent found anyone that seems to get it right.. So I will mess it up myself and not feel so bad about it..
Who knows.. I may end up better off..

Dick

If you buy all of the tools to do all of work on the Bravo drive, change gears, bearing etc you are talking about $2000.0 plus it depends on how much you want to be able to do

Have no fear, Dick. It can't be that hard. You just need the special tools and the service manual. Still cheaper than the labor to have it done by someone else. If you are not sure about something you can always stop and ask somebody on OSO. :cool:

Doug

Tool costs to totally rebuild my Alpha... I know its not a Bravo, but I don't think there are really any more tools..

$210 for a long slide hammer with 3 sets of jaws.you need to grind some of the jaws to fit some of the bearings.

$59 for a 1/2''-5" bearing splitter

$70 or so for a two-3 jaw wheel puller to yank on the bearing splitter.

lower unit needs a special wrench for the pinion carrier, one for the driveshaft retainer nut, one for the shift shaft seal, Upper unit needs a special wrench for the bearing retainer. Also two tools for setting the gear shimming. It was $250 for the lot.

If you want the shimming tools and preload fixture, it is about another $250, but the Seloc manual details an alternate procedure if you don't have the tools.

Bearings and seals and shaft weld repair on the seal surfaces, and a couple of speedy sleeves were another $500.

I did make a lower ds roller bearing installation puller with 1/2' threaded rod for $5.00 with nuts and washers, you need a bunch of hardwood blocks and a deadblow hammer and a torque wrench and a workbench with a vise, and a few other tools.. an impact wrench is nice for retainer nuts.

All told I had $1000 in the job, with all new bearings and seals, mostly from E-basic power..aftermarket stuff.. Factory is a lot more.


It seems like it was $500 for what I actually needed to buy(had a wheel puller), and $500 for parts..about what the marina would have charged just for a reseal and replacement of the stripped driveshaft. It took a while to get all the parts and tools in house at the same time, but labor was about 10 hrs total.

Go for it.. its ONLY a machine..how hard can it be?

Dave

Well I am going to give it a try. My drive has been modified with a SS tower and XR gears, so setup isnt stock. But I will find the info I need to get it done.
I bought tools from Sterndrivespec. He gave me the best prices, and the tools I ordered will be here Friday. Thanks Chris..!! I dont have all the tools, but I will collect them as I need them and learn. I did pull my upper apart this summer to replace bearings and I put it back together. It did make it thru the summer, but the original setup was wrong and ruined the upper pinion gear. So I will figure that one out and reassemble. the lower is almost locked up. Not sure why, but I will by this weekend when I get it apart.
I was wondering why my top end speed was less than expected.. I am hoping this will make a big difference. I need another 17mph out of it in order to run with the BIG DOGS!! :D :D :D
I will keep you guys posted as I learn and progress.. Thanks for the encouragement !!

Dick

Zoomba,

So excluding the tools you had to buy in order to do the job correctly it cost you $500 in parts---correct? Provided you did this with all your own labor of course. Thanks

BTW, who is "E-Basic Power" and how do you get parts from them?

yes the tools are different...in fact be VERY careful there is a difference between bravo drives!....you have to look at the SN....order the correct parts:eek:

I used http://www.ebasicpower.com/ for the aftermarket parts I needed..but I got many of the standard bearings from a local bearing house which I have a relationship.(Discount).

Ebasic has a nice website where you can click on all the parts you need in an assembly drawing, and the number and the part come up.

NAPA automotive publishes a 400 page Marine catalog . If you ask nicely they will give you one, with lots of cool drawings and aftermarket and OEM crossover numbers.

My local NAPA keeps a lot of Marine parts in stock as it is Maines' warehouse,and are very handy for that oil seal you wreck at 7:30 on Friday Nite....though E basic sells them cheaper via mail order. They sell mostly GLM, NAPA is mostly Sierra. WWW.mercstuff.com sells some tools that GLM doesn't make. The owner is nice and helpful as well.

There are basically two aftermarket Mercruiser outfits, Sierra, and GLM. Both make many of the replacement gearsets and shafts. I am not sure if Sierra is owned by NAPA at this point. I am not sure of the quality of these aftermarket parts, the tools seem good. I have used many Sierra parts, but not gearsets, just pumps and bearings. GLM makes gears, I have heard Sierra's are better but haqve no experience..Mike at www.mercstuff.com seemed to prefer the Sierra gearsets The shaft bearing set was Chinese, I prefer "American bearings" but the ones I took out were American and they said Brazil on them.. so who knows.

I am sure a Bravo needs different tools than an Alpha, but I bet there are about the same number of special tools. I am only talking Alpha as it is the only one I can truly say I know what the F*** I'm talking about to some extent.... You also should have an engine alignment tool.

It cost me about $400 for bearings, seals and waterpump kit, $20 for a used driveshaft and about $65 to have the drive shaft I had re-welded over the eroded seal surface and ground back down smooth..a local machine shop did it for me.

There is a product called a speedy sleeve that can fix seal surfaces in some instances..you can use them everywhere due to the need to slide bearings on over some of the parts. It is a precision sleeve made of SS and it press fits over shafts that are worn, they come in .005'' different sizes for many sized shafts, and also come in differing lengths. Bearing supply houses sell them, Chicago Rawhide makes them. http://www.chicago-rawhide.com/auto/speedi/speedi.htm

By the way, you will notice Mercury and Seloc Manuals calling for 'Perfect Seal" After visiting a couple Marinas, and opening all the cans of various gasket sealers at NAPA, I looke thru the NAPA catalog, and determined that NAPA " Aviation Gasket Sealer" is their equivalent.. and it looked like the same goop the Marina had.. both Marinas used OMC 'Lower unit gasket sealrt BTW to further confuse me.

I hope all this useless knowlege I'm sharing is of some help, I figure maybe I can save some of you some research time.

I took my boat off the mooring this week and I'm jonesing hard for a ride..maybe a trailer launch on the weekend

Good call Audacity, sounds like Mr. Gadgets needs to try a different shop. Sorry to hear about your bad experiences. The Alpha is a totally different unit from the Bravo. If you have the skill to build an Alpha, you just need the tools to build the Bravo. There are many differences in the tools/toolsets for standard 1998/earlier and XR/XZ. The replacement gearsets for the standard Bravo are very different from the original and require purchase of tower bearing puller tool. Be aware that different thrust washers are needed, but not mentioned 'till you buy the gear kit (what's up with that?). The new tower bearing is shorter than the original, failure to replace with proper bearing will certainly doom new gearset as I have seen on more than one occasion. Also the tool to install is NOT the same tool as standard tower bearing installation tool. Use of guide for mentioned tools is highly recommended. It's not a complicated drive by any means, but their are some points to watch out for. Like new gears and/or shaft but not checking pinion height. Why do people ignore that stuff? Also a couple of tricks to installing the input seal if you want it to stay put. If you are willing to take your time I'm sure most people could do their own drives, but don't sell ALL "pro's" short. The highest horsepower Mercury sells the bravo for by the way is 575hp. A good throttle can keep it alive but realize it was never intended to take 600,700, or whatever horsepower you want to throw at it.

Good call Audacity, sounds like Mr. Gadgets needs to try a different shop. Sorry to hear about your bad experiences. The Alpha is a totally different unit from the Bravo. If you have the skill to build an Alpha, you just need the tools to build the Bravo. There are many differences in the tools/toolsets for standard 1998/earlier and XR/XZ. The replacement gearsets for the standard Bravo are very different from the original and require purchase of tower bearing puller tool. Be aware that different thrust washers are needed, but not mentioned 'till you buy the gear kit (what's up with that?). The new tower bearing is shorter than the original, failure to replace with proper bearing will certainly doom new gearset as I have seen on more than one occasion. Also the tool to install is NOT the same tool as standard tower bearing installation tool. Use of guide for mentioned tools is highly recommended. It's not a complicated drive by any means, but their are some points to watch out for. Like new gears and/or shaft but not checking pinion height. Why do people ignore that stuff? Also a couple of tricks to installing the input seal if you want it to stay put. If you are willing to take your time I'm sure most people could do their own drives, but don't sell ALL "pro's" short. The highest horsepower Mercury sells the bravo for by the way is 575hp. A good throttle can keep it alive but realize it was never intended to take 600,700, or whatever horsepower you want to throw at it.

rhino,
Thanks for the input.. I have tried too many shops. I will learn myself how to do it properly. Of course with help from others. Still not too old to learn. Like you said, take my time and it will work. As I progress, I will have tons of questions.. So far I have purchased tools from Sterndrivspec... He has taken good care of me..

Thanks

Dick

Good luck Mr. Gadgets, Ihave responded to you elsewhere in the forum. Get everything by serial munbers, hope you still have your numbers (stamp them) Mercury factory numbers on decal is not the best idea.

Boy do I need SPELL CHECK!

Speedie Sleeves

Guys, I stock the C/R Speedie Sleeves. We are a master distributor for C/R and most all bearing manufacturers as well.

I will sell them to any of the OSO guys at actual distributor cost plus shipping. They are expensive but worth every dollar. Most people mark them up 200%, so I can save you some money.

The Speedie Sleeves are slicker than owl ****, and you know how slick that is!

Call me at 704-881-0031 and ask for Mark.

Dock,
I will be giving you a call, or if you could email me I can send a list of what I need for my drive as far as bearings go.. That may be easier..
Thanks

Dick

Dick ,
when you rebuild your drive either install a new tower or make sure your housing is "true". My friend Lenny has this big aluminum Go/No gauge that he made. You slide it down into the upper and if everything is straight it should slide all the way down over the bearing tower. you would be surprised how far the housing can distort. he's had some that the gauge wouldn't even slide half way in.
Now that I typed this I remembered you have the same uppers as we do... with the L & L tower/conversion.
You know Imco actually sells some parts for the XR conversion ? On our drives we still use the standard size U joint assy. No need to switch to the bigger gimbal.
Now that I talked around I wish I would have went with Billet Marine.

26scarab,
I hear you on the wish.. I wish I had not recommended him.. I have heard some horror stories. I am trying to determine if my tower is in fact in the right place. Any chance I could borrow that gauge? Or maybe we could meet in the middle somewhere, share a beer, and I could bring my upper housing along, check it and either make my day or ruin it.. LOL!! Wish I had bought that Smithy lathe/mill/etc when i could afford it.. Oh well. It would be a good idea to get the diminsions of that gauge, so I could have one built.. OR... LOL!! What would your friend need to make another.. that might be the easiest solution..

Thanks
Dick

Chuck, ask Lenny how much to make another gauge? Can the gauge be used on the standard as well as XR gear cases?

Thanks,
Mark

BTW, what the hey is a "CR Speedy Sleeve"????

Mark, Dick ,
I will talk to Lenny sometime this week and get some info. It looks like all that will be need to build one is some aluminum barstock and a lathe .. and of course the right dimensions.