Has anyone had this problem before?
My Bravo 3 started rattling and whenthe engineer took it apart the teeth on the clutch assembley had sheered off and dropped down and broken the casing where the shaft goes through the bearing. Had a complete new drive shaft housing assembley fitted, at great expence, and within 12 hours of use the following day the teeth on the clutch assembley sheered off again. has anyone got any idea why this might happen? Cheers Andy
some photos of broken parts might help diag
High idle speed when engaging gear can break stuff, modern engines often have high idle speed during warm up.
Big engine, big prop, high idle, bang, big bucks and on it goes
The boat is currently in Germany so can't get pic's,
We were cruising down the Rhine when it happened. The engines are V8 turbo diesels and once the repair was carried out we did one pull away, got on the plan and cruised for about 4 hours at about 2600 rpm. the following day we did the same and after about 5 hour of cruising it started ratterling so I stopped and that was it.
failure on the same drive,sounds like you may have fixed the resulting problem and not the cause,
I no expert but i have broken my fair share of sterndrives but any slack in the drive line or torsional vibration,rough running engine will damage gears/drive splines really fast.
not forgetting contamination from your previous failure
The repair were carried out by a Mercury main agent in German so hopefully it will be covered by warranty. The engines seem to be running fine and the transom shields were renewed a year ago so don't think there is a problem that side. The drive unit was also stripped down and a new bearing carrier fitted. The Mercury engineer is looking at it later this weekso will have to wait and se what he says.
Thanks for your input.