I never aired mine out. In all seriousness I think half the **** in the marine biz is engineered to last the warranty period and then break. Repeat biz. What benefit is there to them making something last forever. Boating is such a small industry and requires people with extra money to blow.
Results 21 to 40 of 78
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01-29-2010 12:47 PM
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01-29-2010 03:39 PM
I never had a drive problem with any of my boats
til I got the last boat w/XR's.
(The boat does have a high X, stellings boxes and maximus props)
Both sides, mainly upper gear issues.
Teeth breaking off( and junking out a upper case), teeth chunking out,
gear developing a crack and shearing cone off of gear.( on a brand new complete upper)
I even had a couple sets cyro treated, 1 side still looks great,
the other side started chunking out after 1 season.
Knock on wood, I havent had a upper take a dump in a couple
of seasons, but I did manage to break a propshaft at the shootout
( which I'll take the blame for) this year.
From my experiences it seems like it's a 50-50 chance on getting a good set.
When they're good, they're good, when they're bad,
they show their colors rather quicky.
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01-29-2010 04:23 PM
With the Bravo failure my opinion is poor quality control and like someone else stated in an earlier post the parts are only built to last a certian number of hours.$$$$ for Merc.
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01-29-2010 06:31 PM
Peter,,with the torque of your motors,,, the hull ,,,,the weight,,,the props,,,ect,,,,your finding the weakest link,,,please,,,, sell your xr,s and upgrade your system to a pair of IMCO SC.s or better yet,,SCX,S ,, they will bolt right on...let me know if I can help you get them.,,
IMCO #10- 2009 National Champions
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01-30-2010 11:29 AM
Mercury gears are absolute crap. They use cheap steel with no alloy content so that it forms easily in their net forging process. Then they carburize it and heat treat it to make it hard. Also known as case hardening. That leaves it hard about .020 thick and very soft under that. Material imperfections cause whole teeth to break off at random usually destroying the upper case. I have tried to get gears made from better steel but the problem is they have that cone attached for the cone clutch. To do it one piece is very difficult and to do it 2 pieces welded together requires expensive tooling. One of these days we'll get it figured out.
Big boats rule!
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- Join Date
- Oct 2008
- Location
- Stockholm, Sweden
- Posts
- 193
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02-01-2010 12:44 AM
Early IMCO SC's? What kind of top cap? Left drive uses the upper gear as stated, early IMCO's modified the caps for use with 7/16 studs over the 3/8 bolts that normally holds them down but they did nothing with the top cap bearing towers. I had a set of 2000 SC's that came with the stock Bravo top caps (aluminum towers).
I've since sold them and went to XR's, but I did not use the IMCO modified caps, I put 80 or so hrs on them with MAX Machines billet upper caps which use a steel tower. The better cap uses the same principal as putting the steel tower in the case for the lower gear(right rotation).
I dont know what IMCO did in there later SC drives, but I would hope they put better caps on them. If they are newer drives, sounds like you need to talk to IMCO..
Good Luck
LE
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02-01-2010 01:11 AM
I'm a little confused?? You started the thread saying pin bearing, then started calling the part a pin gear?
You are talking about the upper cap needle bearing that supports the upper part of the clutch shaft right? part #31-843240.
I put on a set of early XR's that came with the std Bravo cap, not the later cap that was redesigned(fin cap). I put on my Max Machine caps from my old drives. These caps use a better and taller bearing, that uses more of the bearing surface of the shaft. I plan on some spring drive maint. pretty soon and will look for any goofy wear on my current clutchshafts, but maybe a better bearing or cap may be in order to ease your mind.
I'm more pissed at Merc with their gear sets. Not only did they raise the price into the atmosphere, but the quality went down the tubes. As mentioned in this thread and on a couple others, the newer gears(3 or so yrs old and newer) no longer wear out and start to pit(as a gear should) but crack and loose teeth, which can destroy a case. IMO thats what Merc should be investigating.
Good Luck,
LE
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02-01-2010 01:29 AM
"Tough sh!t. Where would you like your new gear sets shipped?"
Well, that's how I feel anyway. Dave has been really good to us & it is in no way a IMCO problem. They use Merc gears so they are just selling what they are sold.
I honestly think it was a bad case. I'll know if I break another one this year.Last edited by Bad Idea Baja; 02-01-2010 at 11:34 AM.
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02-01-2010 10:30 AM
+ 1
My experience with these crappy gears goes back to 2005.
When a tooth breaks off and wedges between teeth, it
makes a hell of a noise
I'm to the point now, that if another set fails, I'm considering
replacing them both with X gears.
I've seen many a boat that is heavier and more powerful than
mine run regular helical gears and get better life out of them
than what I'm getting with the XR's.
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02-01-2010 11:36 AM
Mine were older drives. So you may be on to something with the way they're making new ones.
Would make you sick to think of new drives being weak compared to what was made in years past.
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02-01-2010 12:21 PM
Merc has a long history of making changes to save money. Sometimes it works out, a lot of times it doesn't and they go back to the original. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the new gears are being made somewhere else or with a new process..