Universal M25XPB Chugging in gear with no throttle

JK_Boston_Catalina310 · Oct 14, 2013

From the video it looks like your alignment might be off. The "clunking" appears to be the shaft making contact with the side of the stuffing box. Perhaps you didn't seat the rings of packing well and that's the problem.

Have you put a temp gun on it to see if the stuffing box is getting hot?

But there does appear to be a lot of vibration when you are in gear. That could be caused by the shaft hitting the stuffing box but I can't tell much from that video. What does your tranny fluid look like?

Long Story · Oct 14, 2013

On another note - your missing the foam element that covers the air intake unit. Keeps all kinds of crap from being sucked inside the air cleaner.

rpwillia · Oct 14, 2013

Problem fixed?

I am a bit confused. Did the noise go away after you motored for a little bit? Hard to imagine anyone screwing up a re-pack job.

On the air filter, a few of us replaced our air filters with an after market one. It was about $25-30 and was pretty snazzy. Lot better than the oem one. We had a discussion in the forum here or next time I am at the boat I can look it up. PaulJ recommended it.

Long Story · Oct 15, 2013

Dreaming said:
Wow. Yep. Thanks for pointing that out! I would have never known.

Apparently there are two parts, What universal calls the Air Intake "silencer" And the Air filter "Element".

So... the thing that you see in my video. That is the filter/silencer without the foam. Is there actual filtering that goes on in there? Or does the foam do most of the filtering?

In other words, what I'm asking is, should I replace the whole unit for around $70 or just buy the Foam for about $15.

Just the foam is good enough, that is where you trap 95% of what is pulled in. Yes, If you can find the past discussion the new filter that some have switched to is pretty snazzy. The one benefit of the good old original set up is, wash it out and reuse it, over and over and over again.

woodster · Oct 15, 2013

Dreaming said:
Yes. here is a break down of the "knocking" sound

- Neutral Gear: no knocking
- Forward gear, no throttle: Knocking slow at first then constantly
- Forward gear, any amount of throttle: No Knocking
- Reverse Gear: No Knocking

Also note, I backed out of the dock, put it in forward and it started knocking just like before. After putting it in forward the boat was hardly moving. The propeller was spinning but felt like it wasn't spinning fast enough?

I opened the throttle slightly, the knocking went away then after a few seconds it felt like it "Clunked" into gear and the boat started moving normally.

The boat did this a couple times afterwards, where I would throttle all the way down, then throttle up and it would "Clunk" into gear after a few seconds.

Thank you, I'll look it up.

not sure but it sounds like you may need to adjust your shift cable as it may not be going fully in forward at first when you put it in foward.....this may or may not be caused by the stuffing box work...as to say it may have been border line even before and any slight movement of the cable housing could have brought it to a head....so i would check the shift cable for full motion and see if that clears up your problem...some times we over look the obvious when things go wrong and a lot of times we panic due to not fully understanding things...

regards

woody

Tom J · Oct 15, 2013

Dreaming said:
Hello everyone,

So this past weekend I repacked the stuffing box according to MaineSail's fantastic tutorial. When I started the engine back up and put it in forward at the dock, it began to chug and shake.

Here is a video. Forgive the camera work, just listen to the sound its making when I have it put in forward.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKRcHM_rx58&feature=youtu.be

It only made the noise in forward. Not in reverse. I wanted to try it away from the dock, so we pulled out in reverse then I put it in forward. same thing.

Until I gave it some throttle. Once I gave it some throttle, it smoothed out for a bit but we still weren't really moving, then it "Clunked" and I felt the boat push forward. So clearly its a gear issue, like the Transmission isn't fully kicking into forward? And maybe its somewhere halfway between neutral and forward when there is no throttle?

I checked out the gear cables as it was put into and out of gear but I couldn't see anything to my mechanically untrained eye. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to troubleshoot or fix the problem?

It wasn't doing this before so Maybe I bumped or pulled a transmission cable while I was working on the stuffing box?

Any and all help is much appreciated. Thank you.

What kind of prop do you have? Sounds almost like a feathering or folding prop that isn't fully deploying until you add RPM's.

Witzend · Oct 18, 2013

It does not sound like prop shaft slap against the stern tube. It sounds like the tranny is not fully engaged, put it in forward and then see if you can manually move the shift arm on the tranny further, I bet you can.

Michael Meyer · Oct 21, 2013

Chuck's Marine. I haven't used him personally but, he comes with recommendations from a couple of different people.

Stu Jackson · Oct 21, 2013

Sorry to hear about your issues. The C36 skippers have had the same recurring issues. I suggest you join their forum at www.c36ia.org and poke around their message board. IIRC, there are two type of "damper plates" (do a search on that phrase). Try this:

http://c34.org/bbs/index.php/topic,1947.0.html scroll down

Good luck.

Witzend · Oct 21, 2013

Be very careful when having someone rebuild a Hurth tranny. They are serial # specific, so the parts are not necessary interchangeable.

Clydo · Oct 23, 2013

Checking tranny fluid

One way to check fluid level after pulling tranny dipstick is to lay it
on clean paper towel. You will be able to see clear fluid level on
towel in relation to dip stick marking.

Clyde Thorington
C310 ILEANTOO
#245
San Jose, CA

Dreaming said:
Hm. I didn't realize that could happen. MaineSail's instructions on page 3:
http://www.pbase.com/mainecruising/stuffing_box&page=3
Were somewhat unclear as far as how to get the rings into the stuffing gland and I may have done it incorrectly. Now that I've done it, I think I understand a little bit better how I would do it again.

No. I checked by touch (using a wet cloth first) However I actually did take the boat out sailing because it smoothed out when I throttled up Maybe a little dumb I'm aware. BUT... after motoring out of the harbor, sailing, and motoring back in, the Stuffing box was NOT hot at all. And it seemed to be dripping at an acceptable rate of 5 to 10 drops per minute. This is why I thought the packing job was fine.

I just changed the Tranny fluid on Saturday the day right before I repacked the stuffing box. I may have overfilled? But if I did it was only barely (it's so damn hard accessing the dipstick to continue checking and to make matters worse the ATF can be somewhat translucent).

Michael Meyer · Oct 30, 2013

Well that's good news!