What does it take to replace TRS drives?
 

I know that if you swap TRS drives for Bravo's you do away with the transmissions, but are there any other drive's such as SSM's that use the transmissions that will bolt right up without major rework of the transom and engine relocation?

Just exploring options/possibilities since I am repowering the boat anyway.

Someone's going to say an SSM II. But they're almost impossible to find parts for and your X dimension will be at least 2" too low if you just bolt it on.
III, IV, and V's use pretty much the same gimbal (different from TRS). This requires glassing transom, recut, new tranny tailstock, external hydraulic steering.
Same is true for VI.
Stick with the TRS if you're under 550hp.
My $0.02
Gary

You could go with the Pulse Drives and have a surface drive and the cool rooster tail! :D

Hey Monty,
Here's another thing you need to talk with Mark (KAAMA) about. He did that too!
http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/s...avo+conversionswap thread
DS

Madhatter's dad is running over 700 horsepower through his TRS drives with very good luck. I understand he had his transmissions upgraded by Huber.

I tell ya, I've heard the whole gamut of opinions regarding the TRS's. Some people don't think they're capable of handling anything over 450hp or so, then you've got other's giving examples of them living reliably behind big power. I've got plenty of room, prbably 3-4' infornt of the engine's, so the space benefits of going to Bravo's and eliminating the tranny's don't really concern me. I guess it would be nice to take a little dead weight off the boat, but I doubt it would make a significant improvement in performance.

The 540's I'm building will make around 665 ft lbs and 575 hp. I don't drive my boats that hard - easy out of the hole and do my best to keep the boat in the water (my wife wants a Formula PC, so it's self serving to make the ride as smooth and comfortable as possible). However, I would like to be able to comfortably hang with most of the other boats on Lake Michigan without beating on the engines and reving the hell out of them.

Too Old had the drives rebuilt by Doller Offshore and he says there's roughly 0 hours on them. Not surprising I guess since it sounds like he never gets his boats wet, LOL. I was planning on having the tranny's rebuilt/freshened up anyway since they appear to be stock, originals. I just want to make sure I'm not replacing or fixing drives on a regular basis.

FYI,
Merc used to offer a 575hp, 540 cid tall deck motor with TRS drives and standard B/W Velvet drive trannys.
You'll be fine.
Gary

Monty,

There is a guy in Granger, Indiana that rebuilt the TRS and done some of the conversions. His name is Chris Merrill give him a call at 574-272-0618. Nice guy and will discuss his problems he had. Good luck, it is a nice looking Boat !

Monty,
Years ago we ran 540's through TRS's no problem, today they seem to barely hold up to 500 HP. I have heard that the factory changed vendors on the gears a while back. If you want to really be able to run the boat without babying it I think you are asking for trouble.

Gary, if my memory is correct the 575 was sold with SSM drives, if you look at the parts breakdown for the trans it shows the SSM tailstock. Also, the trans had an extra clutch plate in it.

I switched from TRS to Bravo One XR's with Stelling extension boxes. I found a pretty good deal here on OSO with a guy who was taking all his new Bravo One drives off from his new 2000 boat that had the Merc HP500 engine packages and was upgrading his boat with #5 SSM's. His drives/transom assemblies only had 20 hours on them when he was making the switch, so I bought the entire drive and transom assembly package from him which is what I needed to make the conversion. While I was making this conversion I decided to go with the Stellings extension boxes and new Merc Bravo XR drives. I sold the other Bravo One HP drives that I bought as a used package and sold off my TRS drives/transom assemblies and transmissions which helped in funding the conversion project.

I wanted extension boxes on my boat and there weren't any available for the TRS drives and because TRS's were quickly becoming a thing of the past I knew that most likely no manufacturer would produce a TRS extension box. Plus TRS parts are becoming more and more out-dated, not as readily available and thus replacement parts would be more costly. So for the price I was getting for the Bravo One drive and transom assemblies with only 20 hours on them I thought it was a no brainer for the most part and now I have more of an updated boat. :)