Fix it now???


Baycation

Baycation

New member
While preparing to winterize my 330ss I noticed symptoms of a future Bravo 3 drive failure. While idling in after topping off the gas tank I noticed a faint bearing whine. Then while changing the gear oil I found it to be black and smelled burnt. My local marina mechanic said to run it until it breaks... I don't want to be left without a boat in the middle of boating season. I was wondering if there was any cost savings to pulling the drive off over the Winter and replacing the bearings before any other parts are damaged? Is it better to replace the unit with a rebuilt unit? Is it likely the just the lower unit or the entire drive? Just reviewing my options before Spring. Thanks for your advise.
 
I have the same situation. I elected to pull it off now and take it for repair over the winter when they are slower.
I don't want to do more damage then necessary, have downtime without a boat in the summer, and possibly be stranded away from my home mechanic.
I don't think that there will be any savings on the repair because it is done off season.
 
It is not an absolute positive that the outdrive is starting to have a bearing failure. I'm more in the 'run it until it breaks' crowd . . . or at least until the issue/noise becomes more readily identifiable. If you re-build it, make sure to do the u-joints and gimbal bearing.
 
Not sure how you get your boat into and out of the water, but a round-trip ticket for me is about $1k.

So if the boat is already out, and you have a few months to get parts ordered and installed, it seems like a great project to tackle.
 
Black and burnt smelling is not good.

Hope the gear oil has been changed yearly. In any case check to see if you can get it looked at. Don't know where your at but I know a guy in IL which could dissasemble and look into it.

There is also a guy here on the forum which has 2 B3X's (1:81 ratio) for sale. [Thought about buying them my self]
 
Thanks for the feedback. I keep the boat in a boatel so a haul out is not an issue. I change the gear oil at the end of every season (50 hrs or less). I was hoping if I had it looked at now there might be fewer new parts to buy.
 
AllDodge said:
Black and burnt smelling is not good.

Hope the gear oil has been changed yearly. In any case check to see if you can get it looked at. Don't know where your at but I know a guy in IL which could dissasemble and look into it.

There is also a guy here on the forum which has 2 B3X's (1:81 ratio) for sale. [Thought about buying them my self]
Click to expand...

I might even be open to a ridiculous offer. I will never use them and could use the space.
 
I don't think shop's are to willing to rebuild them anymore. I rebuild my two drives on our 330, new gears , bearings, and seals. I think parts came out to 1200 per drive, the tools were another 500. That is with good clutches, pretty much only rebuilding the lower. It took every bit of 8 hours to do a single drive start to finish over the course of a month working some evenings. So add shop labor, and a new lower is the way to go. This might be why the shop is suggesting run it until it breaks. I still have the tools, and was looking into re-casing the drives on our 34pc that were rotted, but wound up buying brand new b3 seacore X drives for 6400 a piece.
 
Could be burnt if the drive does not have a shower on it, B3's get hot. Using them till they break in most cases will need a new complete drive or full rebuild.

Gurryman said:
I might even be open to a ridiculous offer. I will never use them and could use the space.
Click to expand...

In my neck of the woods I could probably resale.
 
Carrier bearing failing. Tear it down now and may be able to save some of the internals.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Yeah I agree with above poster. Tear it down now, identify the problem and replace a part now. You may be able to save most everything else in the drive, and it will definitely cost less money.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top