Velvet Drive help!!! PLEASE!!

[ryan351w]

Ok so last year reverse took crap on my trans. Took the trans out last week, only went into the trans far enough to swap out reverse clutches and springs. I cleaned out the shavings in the trans. Re-installed. Nothing. No FWD no REV. Took back out and apart to rev clutches to double check. Everything looked fine. Back into boat. Same thing, not surprised. I basically verified that I had the pump oriented for left hand rotation engine, and it was. Took back out again, this time I just made sure that lower hose cooler pickup screen was seated correctly into the case, might not have been. Re-installed still nothing.

It was determined that the reverse clutches broke because of a bad damper plate, which I changed.

I have no idea whats wrong.
These transmissions are really not that complicated.

One more thing, with the filler cap off and motor running you can hear/see the fluid bubbling in the case...

Ryan

[kartman]

i would check the adjustment of the cable. and make sure it is hooked up. a cracked or broken cable mount could cause that. so could a stripped gear lever input shaft.

[ryan351w]

kartman, Well, I thought about that as well. I was moving the gear selector by hand, cable disconnected.

[ryan351w]

Ok so this is stupid. Figured it out. The book says to orient the pump to whichever way the engine rotates. Well my motor is a LH or CCW rotation engine. So I installed the pump for LH rotation. Well what the book doesn't tell you is that its supposed to be installed for which ever way the engine rotates looking at it from the front of the motor, which of course is RH or CW. So my pump is oriented wrong.
thankyou Jim at ebasicpower

[Okie Boarder]

Cool! Keep us posted on whether that corrects it.

[ryan351w]

Will do!

[ryan351w]

Okie Boarder, Well that was it. So mental note everyone, when installing velvet drive pump the rotation is as if looking at the FRONT of the engine.
That would have been such an easy one sentence addition to the manual.

[Okie Boarder]

Glad you figured it out. So how hard was it to pull the trans and do the work. I have a dirty nuetral issue that I'm sure is going to get progressively worse. I'm thinking about pulling mine this winter or next winter and go through a basic rebuild on it.

[ryan351w]

What type of boat?
Its really not that hard at all. I have 15 years of wrenching on cars and stuff, but if you got any type of mechanical ability its cake. The hardest and the biggest pain in the ass is aligning the prop shaft with the trans, it has to be within .023 up and down and left and right, its frustrating as hell.

Taking apart the trans is nothing as well. Just make sure you put orient the pump correctly.....

But when you say dirty neutral do you mean it hangs in gear? If you put it in FWD then in neutral does it continue to turn the prop slowly?
What if you put it into REV then back into neutral.
If you haven't checked it I would look at cable. Take the retaining clip out and just move it by hand.
I THINK-You can also remove/clean the "valve" for FWD N REV in the boat.

[Okie Boarder]

You're asking me what boat I have? I thought you knew by now.

I did the alignment when I put my motor back in for the rebuild. If you're talking about the shaft and coupler alignment, it was my understanding you want it to be less than .004" difference all the way around.

Yeah, it hangs in gear from FWD to N. Just a slight spin. If I hit REV it stops it. I'll have to experiment with the cable off and see if it still does it.

[ryan351w]

Sorry yeah at work.....brain is elsewhere.

Your right the .004 is the difference total all the way around. I found a different starting number, but this is basic procedure I got....

"Bring the two halves of the coupler back together until the ridge is sitting in to the recess. Bring the two halves lightly against it so that a .015 inch feeler gauge can be slid in and out of the space with little force. Use the feeler gauge set to measure the gap between the two halves in four at 90 degrees apart. Ensure that these four gaps are equal. There should be no more than a .004-inch difference in the gap from one point to the point 180 degrees opposite."

So yeah your right. I just started with the two halves farther apart. Don't mind me.


As far as the hanging of the gears, it sounds like a misaligned cable. Because if the spring that basically turns off the FWD clutches was weak than putting into REV and back into N wouldn't fix the problem, it would still hang up in FWD. So it sounds like fluid is still going though the FWD circuit and lightly applying FWD clutch. When you go into REV that completely stops fluid to FWD and redirects to REV.
Clear as mud?

[Okie Boarder]

LOL...brain fart. No worries...we all do it.

I think trying some experiments without the cable connected might give me a couple answers.

[ryan351w]

I would definitely be messing with the cable.

btw-after looking at your stringer replacement, you talked me out of doing it myself. I can machine/build an engine, weld etc etc but i can't even pickup a 4x8 sheet of plywood without messin it up.

[Okie Boarder]

LOL. Well, I'm no carpenter either. Actually I do OK with rough carpentry stuff, but not so good with finish stuff. That's what I liked about this project because I could "fill" spots where I made slight mistakes.

I'll definitely mess with it and see what happens. It would be nice if that's all it was.