Pacific 22- Gearbox/Trimming Problems

[Slaphead]

The Borg Warner gearbox on my P22 has been spilling out transmission fluid.
Today I traced the flow from a small opening on the lower starboard side of the bell housing below the fuel lift pump.Mermaid told me the cause was probably the forward seals in the gearbox leaking and the ATF was escaping through the aperture in the bell housing for setting up the engine timing.It would need a front-end overhaul necessitating removal of the gearbox and sending it to them for overhaul- price about £250 ish not including shipping costs.

My questions are:-

1. Has anyone out there in ribnet land had a similar problem and if so,am I better getting the entire gearbox overhauled or would I be better biting the bullet and buying a new gearbox- Extreme Marine are selling compatible ZF boxes for about a grand brand new. My BW box is off a 1989 P22 rated @140hp.Anyone got a ZF box on their's?


2.After fitting new trim rams to the Sternpowr leg they worked for a few days and now don't- the motor is still working and there is no loss of fluid from the system.Does the bottle have to be full to the neck of fluid?Mine goes to within about 3 inches of the filler hole where the bottle starts to narrow.Is this sufficient to provide enough pressure?


Any assistance greatly appreciated.

[Pete7]

The gearbox is fairly standard stuff, surely someone in Belfast can replace a seal in a gearbox. Used to use a compressor firm for similar work, think it was called "Pennies", East of the Ormeau road but memory fading. If not give it to Martin Stitt the Merc Dealer on Island Magee, he has done a steering pump seal for me before now, no problems.

The trim pump on mine has the fuild level up to the taper on the top of the resevoir which is about 1cm below the filler plug. the level mark is on the back of the resvoir so its difficult to see. However thats with a full system if you have air in there then its going to go down. BA Peters fitted my new pump so I don't know how it was bleed unfortunately.

Pete

[Leroy]

If the gearbox is working fine and just loosing oil I would be tempted to remove the gearbox and fit a new front end oil seal, its not a massive job to remove the gearbox, but be preapeared it is heavy!

I just checked the oil level in the trim pump and its about an inch below the filler plug with the leg fully trimmed up.
When I bled mine it only took a few operations fully up and down to bleed all the air out, topping it up as the level dropped.

Leon.

[Scary Des]

Originally Posted by Slaphead

2.After fitting new trim rams to the Sternpowr leg they worked for a few days and now don't- the motor is still working and there is no loss of fluid from the system.Does the bottle have to be full to the neck of fluid?Mine goes to within about 3 inches of the filler hole where the bottle starts to narrow.Is this sufficient to provide enough pressure?
Any assistance greatly appreciated.

There was a problem with some rams where they were not made correctly and they can go ‘open circuit’, if this is the problem it’s rams off and back to Lancing (or did you get them else where ). To test this, both hoses off and put an air line in one side, if the ram is buggered, air will come out the other hole

With regard air in the system, if it was working fine to start with I think it means that you do not have a problem, but just to make sure lift the out drive by hand while running the pump in lift. Once it gets to the top of its travel, pump the outdrive down and repeat. This is best done on the trailer but you can do it in the water with a rope around the prop. If there is any air in the system this will get it out.

The reservoir level on the pumps is not that critical because there is really little flow in the system when compared to some applications so providing it is about half full it should be OK.

If you want to save money and fix the rams yourself let me know and I will tell you what you can do.

Des

[Paul F]

its quite an easy job to replace the seal once box is out,the seal cover is only bolted on,but make sure you put it back in the correct place. If the input shaft of the box is pitted at all around seal area then that could be a bit more than a £3.50 seal from a local seal company.
Paul

[roohairy]

If anyone has found a compatible ZF box could they let me know which one?

By my calculations a four cylinder yanmar (4LHA, 240Hp) will work ok with the sternpowr leg as it runs at higher rpm, (the overload is about the same as a 200hp T4) but the velvet drive gearbox is not quite up to it so I need to find a replacement. All the ZF boxes I looked at (63 model looked most likely from memory) had the output shaft lower than the input and I'd rather not lift the engine 3 or 4 inches.

[Nate]

Nothing to add but to say that, as the owner of an elderly P22, it makes me very happy to know you're all out there and you care...

sniff sniff....

[jackcastoff]

roohairy,

i am just in the process of having a 240 hp yamaha diesel fitted to my p22. We are going with the original box 72c velvet drive as i think we worked out that the extra rpm should keep it within spec. say you are generating 240 shp at 3400 rpm , that would be calculated at 8.6 (for a 1:1 velvet drive 72c) x per hundred rpm (34 for 3400 rpm in this instance) = 292 max hp at this speed.

we looked at also fitting the cheap zf box, and believe it or not we were told if using the same engine, leave it at the original height which will give moretilt on the propshaft. Seemingly this is better for the hardy spicers on the propshaft than having it in line, as they turn and lubricate each other when there is a little bit more offset.

hope this helps!

[roohairy]

I see from Jamie's site that he is advertising a coaxial ZF63, guess this means that the input and output shafts are in line.
See what you mean about lubrication, but offsetting hardy spicers also makes for more vibration. Ok thats totally irrellevant, just what I was thinking about.
Please post some comments on here when you get the boat afloat, I'd love to see what it will do.
Unfortunately I've got a 71 box, so I'd have to change it. Did you come across any adverse comments regarding the ZF box?
What speed are you forecasting, I calculated 34 to 35 knots, not more than 36 if really light. Is this the same as you?
Good luck with it anyway!

[Pete7]

Lancing Marines web site is always worth a read.

http://www.lancingmarine.com/downloads.html

Pete