Yesterday was routine impeller/water pump service day on the XB2002 Steckbauer gear case. Shouldn't have been a big deal.
Was too depressed to write about this last night.
When the pump was removed, just fooling around I turned the driveshaft by hand--as usual, I lock it into forward gear before dropping the lower unit.
The lower unit is all messed up. Turning the driveshaft results in a rough, uneven feel and a growling noise from the gears. I messed with it some more; if you lift the driveshaft upwards the roughness/growl pretty much goes away. There's also a lot of side-play in the driveshaft. :help
I figure I've lost a shim in the case that adjusts the gear lash.
This case has about 20 hours on it since it was built.
I drained the oil immediately and it looked like you could pan for gold in the bottom of the can, little tiny flecks of gold-colored dust. The oil was still green but pretty dark. The magnetic drain plug also had a few flecks of iron on it, but not real bad. I should have taken a pic of it before I wiped it off.:cuss
Also found some hairline cracks in the epoxy on the low pressure side (isn't this where it always happens) of the skeg. Forced some marine epoxy into the tiny cracks and sanded the whole case, fixed a few more tiny imperfections with epoxy putty and gonna primer it black today. I realize I'm just delaying the inevitable about the hairline cracks, but they were in the early stages of going south so I figure I'll just keep an eye on it...AFTER it gets the gear problems fixed.
I called Dave Steckbauer and left a message, and spent the rest of the day building a shipping carton.
Looks like my case will be down for the WAR. I have a modded 200 case that also needs some work (leaking rear main seal and huge chunk of epoxy missing) that I'm going to try to beat into submission in order to be able to take the 2002 to the WAR on May 13th.
On the positive side, if I was getting 111mph with the case in THAT condition, maybe I'll pick up some more when it gets back to being smooth as silk!
Was too depressed to write about this last night.
When the pump was removed, just fooling around I turned the driveshaft by hand--as usual, I lock it into forward gear before dropping the lower unit.
The lower unit is all messed up. Turning the driveshaft results in a rough, uneven feel and a growling noise from the gears. I messed with it some more; if you lift the driveshaft upwards the roughness/growl pretty much goes away. There's also a lot of side-play in the driveshaft. :help
I figure I've lost a shim in the case that adjusts the gear lash.
This case has about 20 hours on it since it was built.
I drained the oil immediately and it looked like you could pan for gold in the bottom of the can, little tiny flecks of gold-colored dust. The oil was still green but pretty dark. The magnetic drain plug also had a few flecks of iron on it, but not real bad. I should have taken a pic of it before I wiped it off.:cuss
Also found some hairline cracks in the epoxy on the low pressure side (isn't this where it always happens) of the skeg. Forced some marine epoxy into the tiny cracks and sanded the whole case, fixed a few more tiny imperfections with epoxy putty and gonna primer it black today. I realize I'm just delaying the inevitable about the hairline cracks, but they were in the early stages of going south so I figure I'll just keep an eye on it...AFTER it gets the gear problems fixed.
I called Dave Steckbauer and left a message, and spent the rest of the day building a shipping carton.
Looks like my case will be down for the WAR. I have a modded 200 case that also needs some work (leaking rear main seal and huge chunk of epoxy missing) that I'm going to try to beat into submission in order to be able to take the 2002 to the WAR on May 13th.
On the positive side, if I was getting 111mph with the case in THAT condition, maybe I'll pick up some more when it gets back to being smooth as silk!
