Adrenaline Junkie

I was recently running in a PR in my 2007 Elminator Daytona with stock 496 HO's Bravo X 1.36 drives, Mercury Maximus 5 blade labbed 30 props - and sheered a prop shaft at 92mph (my first time losing a drive - boy was that fun).

Working with the dealer we were able to get new XR drives to replace the X drives (I am still under warranty) - the boat came with 4 blade 32's, but getting on plane with any load at all was a bear - so I put the 5 blades on this spring - and after 50 hours with these props, I sheered a shaft, even though I was usually gentle out of the hole (ie. < 2400 rpms until on plane)....but at these PR's I am a bit more agressive, especially through the mid range.

We put on the new XR's and the dealer took the boat out for a test run. It ran great, until he put it in reverse to get it back on the trailer - port drive stayed in reverse, and wouldn't come out....had to shut it down.

They pulled the drive to be sure the shift cable wasn't pinched, and that is was still properly connected to the drive - which it was - but apparently the clutch has seized.

To get me back in the water, they put my starboard X drive on the port side while they resolve this clutch issue while keeping the new XR drive on the starboard side.

I have a couple of questions:
1. Any concerns about stress I am putting on the boat, by running an X on my port side and an XR on my starboard temporarily? - I put my 4 blade props back on while in this mode, to reduce stress on the drives.
2. I noticed the XR drive "whines" while under way - my X drives never did that - is that normal?
3. Since the Port X drive used to be on the starboard side, the water pickup for the drive shower is now on the inside of that drive - how much of an issue is this?
4. Any thoughts on why this clutch would seize on brand new XR drive? What's the usual cause of this - and how do you prevent it in the future.

I look forward to your responses.

Mr Gadgets

1.) I wouldnt be concerned about stress on the boat. One drive is broken in, one is not.. but will be.

2.) XR straight cut gears whine.. normal.

3.)Depending on type of shower ( tip design) it could make a diff. Have a friend follow you and see if the water quits spraying on the drive. It may work, but may not be as efficient. Depending on prop rotation. Just dont run it on long runs and dunk it in the water to cool it often, if needed..

4.) If the oil didnt get to the clutch area, that could do it. Or you could have a bad gear or cone clutch. There has been a lot of this happening lately.. Complaints of sticking in gear, but I am not sure what the cause is. Will be interesting to see what they come up with. I havent had any customers with the problem that I could see it first hand..

Hope this helps.

D*ck

2112

I have one (new) XR drive stuck in gear too. It was hard to shift from the beginning but gave no indication there was a problem until it just locked. The port drive is perfect and easy to shift. They rotate out BTW.

Keep us posted. I hope to find out on mine by weeks end.

JohnnyG

I will comment on question #2 only, as the others I am probably not qualified to answer.

Having owned both an X drive and now 2 XR's, the XR's definately have a distinct whine that the X drive didn't have. I've heard that this is a normal difference between helical gears and straight cut. Hope this helps...

By the way, if you were able to upgrade X drives to XR's under warranty, that's a pretty sweet deal. Did I read that correctly or did you pay extra for the XR's?

John

Adrenaline Junkie

You ready it correctly - I was very pleased. I attribute this to my dealer McMillan Marine - I have baught several boats from several different dealers, but no one has represented the me, boat owner, better than these guys.

Here's the deal - my boat came stock w/X drives. After 20, then 60 hours I had the drive oil changed in both drives. At 60 hours port side drives had metal in them - a bushing disintigrated. Under warranty they replaced the drive. At 80 hours (20 hours on the new drive) - I had the drive oil changed again - this time there were some fragments in the starboard drive (very small and slight) - so I questioned my dealer and said - "are you sure X drives are enough for this boat the way it is driven, or should they have put XR's on this boat". The dealer responded that those drives are rated for 450 hp each and were what Merc recommended to Eliminator.

That conversation happened on a Thurs. That Sat, i ran a poker run and on the 3rd leg sheered the port side drive shaft. Obviously I wasn't amused.

So, I expressed my concern again to the dealer. He got on the horn and spoke to a number people at both Merc and Elim. Through his research he uncovered a memo from Merc that stated that Elim boats rigged similar to mine should be rigged with XR's from now on and not X's - so this played in my favor.

I am very grateful that Merc agreed to upgrade me to the XR's - and hopefully spend less time in the shop and more time on the water. It looked like if we kept those x drives on, I'd have issues every 20 hours or so. Probably due to me running 5 blade props - and running them aggressively.

Now, Merc has agreed to shoot over a new upper to replace the seized clutch on the new XR. At this point Merc might be wishing I put Konrads on this boat

The dealer is putting the new upper on tomorrow to hopefully have me in the water on Thurs.

Adrenaline Junkie

So, I ran my 4 blade merc 32 props with a 1.36 bravo x on the port side and a 1.35 on the starboard side for a week. I did not like the way it felt. It had some serious cavitation problems (more than I had remembered previously when I used to use the 4 blades every day). Almost always the port side would blow out first. When I finally got on plane, the boat didn't feel as hooked up as normal, felt kind of sloppy...but heh, at least I was able to use my boat while Merc sent the new XR Upper.

Thurs, the dealer got the new upper on and we took it out for a test run. I put the 5 blade labbed 30's back on, jumped up on plane and hit 98mph on a very humid 82 degree day, no chop in our bay. I could only do a short pass (I stayed in the bay because I only had 10 mins to do the test run).....but based on this, I think I picked up a couple of mph with these XRs (or it may be the new port side labbed 30 - since the old one spun off and we used to pull slightly to port side, so it may not have been hooked up as well as the starboard side).

I took the boat up to the thousand islands this weekend and couldn't jump on the sticks due to the speed limits up there - but we ran over to Kingston on Sun to check out the h/w that was still there from the poker run (some serious gear there) - on the way back I was able to play a bit through the Canadian channel - there were 2 footers with an occassional 3 and we were cruising at 85mph like it was nothing.

The boat felt better than it ever had. Felt really hooked up - acceleration was fantastic. There wre a few people coming back from the run, so I played with them, accelerating fairly aggressively. No pull to port side at all.

So far, very pleased with this set up

Lesson learned - 28' elims with 496 HO's - avoid Bravo X drives - push hard to get something at least as a capable as an XR. Even though the 496 HO is relatively tame power, it's too much for the x if driven even somewhat aggressively.