Transmission slippage

[frank balcer]

Yesterday as I was leaving out of my slip I noticed my boat going real slow, as I throttled up suddenly the transmission caught and the boat came imediately up to the spped I'm used to for the revolutions i was turning. Figured since i was out i would sail anyway. Later that day with only one more incident of slippage, I returned to my slip and checked transmission oil level. Level was were it was supposed to be although there is a very slight metallic discoloration to the transmission fluid. The transmission is a Hurth, bolted to my Universal M25. Looking back I think it slipped one other time last year while on a trip to Florida. Any ideas as to what is going on. I hate the idea of pulling the engine to get to the transmission but if so is this Hurth easily rebuildable by a fellow with pretty good mechanical skills? Thanks in advance all.....

 

[Stu Jackson]

Interesting coincidence

Frank, try reply #5 on this recent discussion about transmissions like yours: http://forums.catalina.sailboatowners.com/showthread.php?t=113299

In answer to your degree of difficulty question, being "handy" with tools really helps. Access to the transmission makes the difference in the repair story, but it's doable. It is reparable, great attention needs to be given to the seal at replacement time. See http://c34.org/bbs/index.php/topic,5139.0.html I'm guessing the assumption that it gets dark right away is pretty true, but maybe not like the engine oil. I don't know, as I said in the last post. The level is OK, so the linkage is the next culprit.

I'll try to stumble across some rebuild articles, but don't recall any off the top of my head.

No rebuilds, but there is this which I added to the earlier discussion, too: http://www.c34.org/wiki/images/9/9f/TransmissionCable.pdf

 

[frank balcer]

Thanks Stu

Thanks Stu, i will check the thread out. As to being handy, I;m a 13 year inside machinist and now have 15 years at a local refinery were I mainly do ALL of the rebuilding of small steam turbines and am branching off into gearbox repairs. So i'm guessing that makes me "handy"

 

[Scott T-Bird]

Hi Frank,

I had pretty much the same symptoms last year ... occasionally when I would be shifting into gear and keeping the engine speed very low (like around docks) I was getting that slippage. It really irked me on the day I was nosing into a concrete pier (with nobody on board to help me) and reverse would have backed me off enough to nudge myself into a rubber tire. Instead, my bow nudged up against some exposed concrete right between 2 tires and I had a little gel coat repair to do!

I suppose that you have no choice except to pull that tranny apart and pull out that gear cone. Mine showed very little wear, but there was enough to cause the problem. I took the tranny to Mack Boring for a rebuild. The advise to me was that unless I was confident with the skills needed to reseal, better have Mack Boring do it. The replacement part was fairly expensive as it was so I just bit the bullet and let them take care of it. They claimed they gave me a discount from their standard rebuild (which would have been about $850 full price - mine was around $650). It works like a charm right now!