I have 2 transmissions rebuilt by Bam in 2020. Probably 100 hrs on em now.
One puked all the oil out the front seal, clutches still looked okay.
I replaced all the clutches, seals, steels and o rings.
Put it all back together , it pukes all the oil out the front seal again , in neutral at idle

WTF is going on , any ideas??




I did not replace the shaft metal seals since everything looked fine in there , figured they were fine.. fyi

Clutches

Dan,

If those are just 9 clutch 72Cs, you may want to upgrade to BAM / Huber 1450. another issue I see is that the higher HP trans are usually plated in the front so as not to blow out the seal.




One more thing, you need to flush / ultrasonically clean the coolers and lines out of that system - there may be a lot of clutch debris floating around there that will take out the trans in a few hours.

Get with someone who rebuilds these to help you - or I fear you may just be having more issues. Also, for that big heavy CAT, you should be running 13+ clutches, which requires different internals for the setup.

FYI - Innovation and BAM have become a little long on delivery. Not even sure if Innovation does service work anymore or will sell you any parts. May want to contact the drive guys (Colabella, etc) see if they can help?

BAM did quote me once on rebuilds / upgrades, but then I found a new in box set of 1450s I bought so I didn't do that.

(I've been through about 10 trans over the years and have learned the hard way.... If you run the lesser trans on your setup - expect it to become a maintenance item. Buy the bigger trans, increased sump if available - buy once cry once. ) You've spent enough on that build to warrant proper transmissions. Get out the AMEX!

Frickstyle, larger sumps help out with thermal capacity and fluid life.

Have you ever considered a remote reservioir to add fluid volume to the system?

What trans fluid temps are you running?

The seal blew out ..thats my problem. I have found a metal rim seal insted of these rubber deals that suck.
These have 11 clutches. Can`t fit anymore in there unless you got LV
On the heavy Cig I had a bam 1200 or something .. it is the only thing that never broke, except for the new owner, if that held up for 12 years on that old heavy cig these 1300 should be able to handle the cat.
I`ll use locktite on this seal.

I also have 2 diferent pumps, the Bam one has a groove that leads to the seal area , not sure why or if thats a mod Marc does. The other does not .

Dan, yes you can max those out with 11 clutches. That's what I have had in my boat for years, and still spun the transmissions - probably 10 rebuilds & 4 or 5 different transmissions over the years. This Summer I bit the bullet and went with Huber 1450s - hardened shafts, better oil pump, bigger clutch "basket" that holds more clutches.

Like in your facebook post, a few mentioned you can drill and tap, and then "faceplate" a custom aluminum washer on the outside of that seal, all mine now have that. Was trying to find a picture for you but I don't have one. I'll try to text you pic later.

I would suggest getting with someone who knows these trans / upgrades to save you time in the long run. These quick fixes will rear their ugly head down the road (loctite, metal seals, etc). I think what you have are probably good for 800-900 ft lbs.

You probably had some unicorn transmissions in the Cig!

Looks like some crap went through it. Change the pump, machine the reverse adapter, ultrasonic the oil cooler. Flushing won't do it. Once there is too much clearance in the pump and reverse adapter they will develop pressure behind the seal. Retainer can't hurt but that only solves the symptom, not the cause. Next thing is they will build enough pressure to blow the lip on the seal out even though the seal stays in place.

Vibration from a drive plate problem or drive/driveshaft mis-alignment also plays hell with the pumps.
Do you have the serial number of the transmission?

11 plates is the max for any of the classic 72 series. Have to move up to an LHP (Merc QV4 style) for more. We can get 22 clutches in one of those.
As far as delivery we are currently running 1-3 weeks. Depends on what we have going on.

The deep sump is not so much about adding thermal and fluid capacity, What is does is assure a steady fluid supply and gets the fluid away from the rotating drum which in turn cuts drag and lowers the temp. We highly recommend the deep sump for anything turning over 5500 RPM.

Back when I had my parasail boats I learned the hard way if you lost a pump or a motor on the hydraulics winch system to just throw out the pump and motor and the cooler and all the lines and start all new.

You might get a week or a month out of just replacing either the motor or pump and no matter how good you clean out the lines the system would fail again.

So to my point if cleaning the cooler is so critical what do you do with the lines ?

Not sure what Mercruiser recommendations are, but I was a GM trans technician for 37 years and when it came down to air conditioning lines and transmission lines if they were rubber and something come apart, they would often recommend you replace the lines because the metal would stick onto the inner wall of the hose and slowly loosen up and mix with your oil

20 years ago down at the marina I frequented we had a guy with a Searay cruiser with some big blocks that one of them spun a bearing .

He was doing the pullout and replacement himself . He installed the first motor and it went bad within a month. Bought another one and installed it and got a week out of it before it spun a cam bearing

I asked him did you replace the oil cooler and lines the first time. Nope , flushed real good.

Told him to replace everything new and the motor was still running right up till the hurricane a few years back.