Stuck in forward no more

By Sailor Keddy -
I knew full well when I got Soveraine that the transmission was stuck in forward. I thought it was probably a linkage issue that would be easily fixed. Once that possibility was ruled out, I toyed with the idea of leaving it stuck in forward, since I had throttle control. I would really only need reverse and neutral coming into a dock, and, and in all practicality not even for that. I got to the dock I'm at now slowly coasting in after cutting the engine a few yards before gliding alongside it. No sweat.

But, since I have the time, I decided to get it looked at professionally. A friend of all Newport boaters and a lifetime diesel mechanic John Whitney came over to look at it and promptly said it had to come out for him to really diagnose it. He said it probably was just a worn part that needed to be replaced (he even narrowed it down to one or two specific pieces, given an exploded diagram of the reverse gear), not a huge deal, just not something he could do with it sitting in my boat.

About 10 hours spread over two days later, with some great assistance from Green, it was out and in my cockpit. Most of that time was spent in various contortions trying to loosen bolts that had been ignored for decades. It was only 24 bolts, but some of them gave me some real guff. Oh, and right when we were about to pull it out, we realized the spline was too long and I had to get the engine off of its mounts and move it forward a few inches. Kind of a pain. Here are some pics of the progress:




One week later and John called me to say it was only a bolt that had backed itself out! The total cost for him disassembling/reassembling the whole thing was $250 for half a day of work! No new parts, no calls to Sweden. I had it back the next Monday and three hours later it was in place and reconnected to the engine and prop shaft.

With this issue now behind me, all I have left on my list of essentials are the chainplates and rudder. Outside of those its paint and some cushion covers, reassembling the head and minor electrical work. Soveraine will be ready for summer sooner than later, can't wait!



Comments

Scott Kuhner said…
Scott, your transmission issue reminds me of the time when we were in Durban South Africa on our 30 ft. Seawind, Bebinka and I felt we needed more power. So, I had a new two-to-one transmission shipped to us. I then had to raise the whole engine bed by a couple of inches and then get my prop re pitched. It was one hell of a project, just like yours; but, we did have more power after that.
March 12, 2013 at 10:41 AM
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