ST31

Just got back from the lake. Yesterday I took the boat out and it drove great. Today I take it out and notice that I have no forward on my starboard side. Reverse and neutral work great. When the shifter is in the forward position the prop spins at idle, but when I push the throttle it does nothing but raise the RPM's.

502 EFI with Blackhawk drives.

Thanks for any help.

Tinkerer

You may have a bad lower shift cable. If it rubs on something and gets a hole in the side it will go into gear in one direction but not the other. Had this happen to me. It rubbed on the output coupling. Had to change it by going back to the trailer on the second day of a weeks vacation of port hopping. I just loved backtracking a day of boating. I was lucky it was reverse that I lost not forward.

ST31

Thanks,

What's involved with changing it out (can I do it myself), and is there a way to verify that it is the problem.

SLINGSHOT

you blew the clucth cone most likely!

ST31

So what's involved with the repair and the approx. cost?

ST31

Any suggestions on where or who I should take the boat to have it looked at in the Dallas area?

Thanks

Mbam

Actually you probably blew the floor out of the gear, a common problem that is related to the clutche as Slingshot says. Cable could do it also, but the gear failure is more common. The new style gears are much stronger.

Helmwurst

I'd say you lost the forward gear, either sheared from the gear floor or the floor dropped out. The upper gear set is going to run about $1000 plus labor. Don't run it any more until you get it looked at!! If it is the internals on the drive. you are pumping the metal all trough it and it will scar all the bearings! This will triple the repair cost.
Good luck, hopefully it is only a cable, but if the shifter moves, I would bet it is the drive. Make sure your cable is adjusted correctly! Mine was out of adjustment and cost me a new drive rebuild. By the way the adjuster cable is less than $10.

ST31

Thanks for the information. I got the boat on the trailer this morning and out to be serviced. The service shop has said the same as each of you. Hope to have it back in time for the holiday weekend with atleast some money left over for gas

Nordicflame

Well, this is how I became a happy Marc (BAM) customer. I don’t know if it can be related at all and if it was coincidence or what, but this is what happened.

BobL, from Full Throttle Marine flew up from Texas to join me in tuning our new 540 with an M3 ProCharger and FAST efi setup.
Well, the weather was very cold as was the water and after running the motor on the hose we went to the lake. Bob launched me off of the trailer and it settled into reverse nicely. Well, when I went to slip it into forward nothing happened. Just silence…
I figured the frigid water had the Redline gear lube so thick that it just wouldn’t engage.
We were able to get it to engage by bumping the key off and back on to just slow the idle way down. We proceeded to tune and after some hard runs it still would not engage as it should. So at that point I eliminated the cold water theory.
The tuning went well the rest of the time but the gear in/out was still an issue.
5 days later I headed to the lake with my wife and daughter for some more fine-tuning and hoping for some reason that the issue would somehow disappear. When pulling a hard run with a 28 Bravo, the drive completely let go at 5600 rpm. I do mean completely! There was not a gear left in the upper with all of its teeth and the bottom felt like it was full of marbles. When I pulled the drive off, the spanner nut was completely loose and threads marred. I don’t know if this happened when it went or was the cause or part of the cause.
The drive was one of the new X series.

Bottom line is, save yourself the grief and get it fixed before you run it again. I had a real hard time telling my wife that the down payment for her new car was going on the ass of our boat.
Marc at BAM had me a new XR across the country in two days. Thanks!
While at Havasu the following week, I had Max Machine install their upper shaft and caged bearings along with their massive top cap ;o) (Great guys!!)

Later,
Dave