We are 3 charter company's here in Norway that bought new boats this year, the boat builder gave us a great offer for Xr drives as we ride lot in big waves and we were worring if the bravo one diesel drives could handel your driving.

After 5 hours of use the first xr drive where blown, a cracked tooth on the upper gears was causing the problem.

after 160 hours of use the second drive did blow, upper gears was the problem.

after 180 hours of use the third drive did blow, upper gears is the problem.

We run twin Yanmar 315 hp diesel engines with 576 lbs in torque
and Mercruiser say the reason for blown drives, is that we jump waves.

The boat is 36' and weight 9500 lbs with 20 people inboard.

We are now in the search for stronger drives as we loss a lot of money because of the boats standing on land and not driving trips with people onboard.

Could some one recommend what drive we should consider,
we have been looking at bmax, weismann and the Arneson asd6 conversion

If anyone have tested any of the drives mentioned above i would appreciate any comments

more pictres

hi from austria
i would also consider upgrading the drives with parts from IMCO.
they manufacture a lot of reinforced parts for the bravo drives, also they are very helpful and willing to talk about a particular problem and wont talk you into buying their stuff.
you might get away cheaper than with a complete changing of the drives. last price i know for the bravo-to-arneson conversion was about $16000 per drive, complete kit but before shipping and import to the EU.
if you dont have an IMCO dealer in your area, let me know as i am listed with them and might get a decent price; and i can forward the stuff within the EU without further expenses.
let me know

peter
vienna/austria

You should talk to the people at Konrad about their drives, I think they currently make the strongest outdrive for diesels which nI beleive is their #540 drive. Its now available with a much more effiicient high speed lower unit.
Good Luck,

Ray @ Raylar

I would run a bmax drive. The uppers are almost bullet proof. I have broken lowers, but never an upper. Thats with over 1000 lbs of torque. I killed an XR in less than an hour.The Bmax has 50Hrs on it now.

Imco uses Merc gears. Their gears are not any stronger than Mercury.

thanks for the info
peter
austria