One of my uppers on my 98 Formula is in need of a rebuild. My needle bearings are on the way out.

Have the chance to rebuild it, or trade the unit in as a core - for one with the upgraded gear set.

its the late 90’s style upper that spent most of its life in salt at $1600 to rebuild or $2200 for a fresh water upper with the upgraded gear set.


Power is via 8.2 Mag Efi

Any thoughts?

What upgraded gears are being used?

Don't know anything about upgraded gears, but if it just needs needle bearings there easy enough to replace with the correct tools. That said, if your drive is between serial number 0B664190 THRU 0F729999, I have an upper I sell for $450 + ship. Being a B1 you don't use the fin extension. Gears should be 32/27

First Gen Bravo / 3

The upgrade is to the X gear set.

Running 1.5’s

My housing was attacked by Electrolysis. sanded, Blasted, filled, painted to look new again. Dont have time to do that again.

Rebuilding the port motor this winter, the intake failed and allowed water into the cylinders - that is my main project now.

Here is the link to the XZ gears:

CP Performance - Mercury XZ Bravo Gears Upgrade Kit 1:50 Ratio

The 1:5 uses the same upper gears and 15/19 lowers. So if your upper is in the same serial number range it will work

Have a look here, Sick Stinger has several Bravo's up for sale
Large list of parts for sale

Thanks, saw his list. Hard to know what those internals look like. I had a chance to get a drive locally, for the same price as a rebuilt upper.

My upper worked great, had a local shop change the seal - as I found a few drops of oil in the bellows. He took the gears out and found the needle bearings going out - lots of sepertaion between them.
Cone drive worn
Something with the linkages - totals $1600 to rebuild mine including labor.
My question is more to is the move to the upgraded gear set worth it or not.

What makes the X drives stronger is the steel tower and the improved top cap. The X gears and the standard bravo gears are the same, other than the X accepts a larger input shaft. The input shaft retainer nut on an X drive will be flat, this is how you will know if it has a steel tower. If it doesn't have the flat nut and it has notches in it, most likely it is just a standard bravo. Than is unless it has an aftermarket steel tower in it, which is unlikely, because he would have mentioned that. I would not pay $600 extra for the upgraded drive, because it is exactly what you have.

Personally if your drive guy is saying the X has improved gears, I would find a new shop. Obviously he doesn't know what the difference between a standard Bravo and a Bravo X is.

Perhaps he is calling the X drive gears with a thicker floor an upgrade. Those can be installed in older standard Bravo drives by setting the races deeper. Actually, not even sure if you can buy the original gears sets anymore. 6 yrs ago when I rebuilt my ‘99 drive, theXgear set was the replacement.

If your housing is ate up from the salt use, it’d be a consideration to go with the rebuild. Your drive has lasted this long as the old design, no reason it won’t go another if you just need a new set of bearings and all else is good.