Mr Gadgets

Vinny,
Thanks for chiming in!!
I like the new handle!!

Dick ( We'll see if my name has been approved?)

Vinny P

Dick,

After I saw this thread you started, I remembered I was supposed to send you the pictures. I just figured I would post them here instead. If you want them sent to you before I optimized them, let me know.

Mr Gadgets

Vinny,
That's ok.. I can get them from here, I believe. My email is down at this time anyway..

Thanks
Dick

PS. Thanks OSO for unblocking my name!!

articfriends

I have treated about 20 sets of upper gears,most in twin engine applications,the feedback I got was very positive (like yours) with the exception of one race team that chose to just treat the upper pinion gear,not the complete upper set. I Have been replacing the stock mercruiser bearings in the upper gears with the max machine worx caged bearings,they run on the inside of the gear cup instead of a outer race. The max worx bearings seem to hold the gears truer on the tower and cap anyways,Smitty

Vinny P

Smitty,

The results you have achieved with the uppers is equally as impressive. The uppers in my drive are several seaons old. When I replace them, I will definetely be treating them as well. However, at my moderate power level, I think that the uppers will last a while. The weak link is the lower gear set. For guys like yourself , who is running big power, well that another story.

SpeedMaster

Maybe that was me.
Except, I had a small pit in the upper pinion on the COMPLETE treated set.
The other contributing factor is I changed oil, told by a major drive supplier that it was what they used on there 'house' drives.
That was OK, told Smitty about the pit, there is no problem.

The 2 x upper pinions (for customer boats) that I had done (not the set) both had failures within 15/20 minutes.
I lent them my treated XR and built up an X to use myself.
The first one had prop failure at about 10 minutes, received the new Mercury XR top and installed, my XR went under the bench.
The second one broke and I lent them my XR, run up on the boat and a weird noise (slight), pulled the top box and 1 x tooth was ******,hmmmm. Put in a spare gear, ran a different oil to what they were running and next race no problem.
Pulled the 'new' Merc XR on the other boat and a pit in the gear (after 10 minutes run in), hmmmm, changed its oil as well.....It won its next event.
Both these drives were running a highly recommended oil ,, customer supplied and not Mercury or Sierra.
My X drive runs at more horsepower than the other Two failed ones.
All upper gears used the Max Machine bearings except the new XR.
So oil selection is critical, I am not running the Merc oil, and have had no failures on Merc or Sierra.... Think twice before changing your oil spec...

I DO NOT WANT TO GET INTO AN OIL BRAND SLINGING MATCH,
this is only a report on what happened, they are race only boats running Bravo derivatives.

And I WILL get more treated gears from Smitty/Articfriends

SpeedMaster

duplicated

Mr Gadgets

I have run the Royal Purple for years. This next year I will be bumping up the power to test, like Smitty has been. I am in the process of setting up my next drive. Havent worn out the old one yet, close to 300hrs on it, but with only 750-800hp (guessing) and no gear treatment. I was able to get 87.7mph out of my 283 Convincer this past summer..
Next year I will have the Procharger on it to be in the same leaque as Smitty for test purposes...

I have installed treated gears in several customer setups, all with good results so far. I dont recall the numbers, not as many as Smitty, but I think at last count around 40 gears, uppers and lowers.

Dick

Panther

Dick,

I have a question regarding Mercury's manufacturing of the lower gears.

What kind of tolerance variances have you been seeing between gearsets (new/old). Meaning, how much shimming have you had to do on the lowers when installing a new gearset, or have they been pretty much the same??

Mr Gadgets

Panther, as far as depth goes, they seem to be pretty close. But I do see a variation in lash from set to set. Even with the uppers, they can vary an extreme amount..

Dick