Bravo XR upper gears - Good Gears ? Bad Gears?
07-12-2013 | 12:04 PM
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Joined: Apr 2010
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From: Sarasota, Florida
Bravo XR upper gears - Good Gears ? Bad Gears?
For quite awhile I have been reading that the quality of the upper Bravo XR Gears have been going down hill. Obviously if a set lasts as expected they are labeled as a good set and if they blow up they are labeled as a "bad" set no matter who built the drive.
We have some real sharp techs on this forum and collectively I believe we could come up with a way to test a new gear set prior to a rebuild or change assembly procedures to make sure they fall into the "good set" category. Or at least give us a fighting chance for them to do what we intend and last as expected them to do.
I have several questions I want to first ask your opinions on before I really get going into this thread. Because I have a ton of them.
1st How many people think the gear heat treating process has become inconsistent? How many techs on this forum Rockwell test the broken gear sets? Do any techs Rockwell the new sets for correct hardness prior to installation?.
2nd. How many techs go straight by the book when setting pinion depth and backlash, and bearing rolling torque? With regards to pinion depth how many feel they are seeing a wide variance on how a real gear tooth pattern should look.? What I mean is do you feel that setting pinion depth at the recommended .025 clearance is really only a ball park average and is not up to par from a performance standpoint?
3rd. Do you feel the actual gear faces and machining are becoming substandard or have been shipped over sea's for manufacturing?
4th How may use the factory high performance Merc gear lube and how many use special blends or aftermarket such as Amsoil, Torco, Redline etc etc
I'm going to keep a record of all this. I'm even going to build some test jigs so that we can see what is happening to our gear patterns under a load. With some input and ingenuity I will be happy to share my findings with everyone. My .02 cents worth and everyone else's we may be able to come up with a dollars worth of knowledge gained and increase our chances on keeping gear sets together longer, so all ideas and input would be greatly appreciated.
Warren aka SRQ
BTW a little about me since I'm fairly new to this forum and haven't had the chance to personally meet many of you. If any of you Gearheads ever get down to the Sarasota area give me a shout, I'll be more than happy to buy the first round of beer while discussing drives.
I have been a Mercruiser Tech since the late 60's, my Masters Mercruiser # is FL0178 so I've been around awhile and I specialize in building Bravos for offshore race only boats. Mainly the Super Vee and Super Vee Lite classes along with the "P" classes that use Bravos. I do see a few high performance pleasure rigs but mostly my drives are race only so they get driven HARD. That's all for now, lets get those thinking caps on.
We have some real sharp techs on this forum and collectively I believe we could come up with a way to test a new gear set prior to a rebuild or change assembly procedures to make sure they fall into the "good set" category. Or at least give us a fighting chance for them to do what we intend and last as expected them to do.
I have several questions I want to first ask your opinions on before I really get going into this thread. Because I have a ton of them.
1st How many people think the gear heat treating process has become inconsistent? How many techs on this forum Rockwell test the broken gear sets? Do any techs Rockwell the new sets for correct hardness prior to installation?.
2nd. How many techs go straight by the book when setting pinion depth and backlash, and bearing rolling torque? With regards to pinion depth how many feel they are seeing a wide variance on how a real gear tooth pattern should look.? What I mean is do you feel that setting pinion depth at the recommended .025 clearance is really only a ball park average and is not up to par from a performance standpoint?
3rd. Do you feel the actual gear faces and machining are becoming substandard or have been shipped over sea's for manufacturing?
4th How may use the factory high performance Merc gear lube and how many use special blends or aftermarket such as Amsoil, Torco, Redline etc etc
I'm going to keep a record of all this. I'm even going to build some test jigs so that we can see what is happening to our gear patterns under a load. With some input and ingenuity I will be happy to share my findings with everyone. My .02 cents worth and everyone else's we may be able to come up with a dollars worth of knowledge gained and increase our chances on keeping gear sets together longer, so all ideas and input would be greatly appreciated.
Warren aka SRQ
BTW a little about me since I'm fairly new to this forum and haven't had the chance to personally meet many of you. If any of you Gearheads ever get down to the Sarasota area give me a shout, I'll be more than happy to buy the first round of beer while discussing drives.
I have been a Mercruiser Tech since the late 60's, my Masters Mercruiser # is FL0178 so I've been around awhile and I specialize in building Bravos for offshore race only boats. Mainly the Super Vee and Super Vee Lite classes along with the "P" classes that use Bravos. I do see a few high performance pleasure rigs but mostly my drives are race only so they get driven HARD. That's all for now, lets get those thinking caps on.
