toasted lower unit, need opinions from people who know what they are doing

[tylerdelorme]

the long weekend was a blast until my lower unit finally died, its a custom titus cle that he built for me, he tells me it was an old model two whole cle at one time in its life. i recieved the empty case from him and swapped in the stock guts from my 1985 2.0 liter xr2. we had to tap a whole for the drain plug which i was not thrilled about and i think that might have had something to do with the gearcases failure, i had trouble keeping water out of it and i belive that this drain plug was the source. the case itself is in fine shape i just lost reverse and have grinding whinning gears and they slip all the time. at any rate it needs to be fixed.

i dont know what guts will fit in there but there has to be something a little better than the stock 2.1 xr2 gears that i had. my marine mechanic says that finding a good set of sporty or cle gears wont be hard but they will be most likely be 1.87 ratio vs the 2.1 that i was running. i also want to do way with that hole in the side of the gearcase for filling and drianing. its not reccessed and doesnt keep the water out and defeates the purpose of having a super custom streamlined gearcase.

the boat is a 1984 hydrostream valero with a very snarly tweaked out xr2, exhuast mods and timing advance and all that jazz... its got the titus case abviously. has a detwiler jack plate and turns 28p labbed mercury lightning et to just shy of 6000 when i have it jacked to the moon. top speed is just under of 80 with the new gearcase.

with the 2.1 gears and 28p et the boat would jump out of the water, and if i carried 5 big guys it would still plane without everybody having to move up front. i pulled tubes and everything all summer with that setup. and when i wanted to go out for a rip and scare the crap out of somebody she would hop up on the pad and scream.

in summary i need to know what my best options are for the gear swap. i need to know what fits and what ratio of gears i need to be looking for. if i get 1.87 gears how will that effect the boats performance. i also want to know what to do about that hole in the side of the case, i want it gone and i want to drain and fill from behind the prop.

thanks

[Capt.Insane-o]

Probably spun the carrier, which may or may not require the threads and mating surface to be repaired. I used the aluminum doctor in fla for my last one and he does great work. Going to a rear drain plug is going to require a fat shaft swap or if you can find a used cle propshaft and bearing carrier. The little weenie roller bearing in stock fishing carriers will not take the abuse of surfacing a prop for very long.

[TEXAS20225]

very difficult to diagnose a blown gear case over the internet if not impossible Capt has headed you in the right direction but unless you have a excess of lower unit parts like myself or others you will spend more buying parts then you will buying a case ready to run My .02 CLE /Sporty/Torqmaster guts are not cheap these days

[tylerdelorme]

so unless i want to change my props and go fatshft it sounds as though i need to find a good set of c.l.e innards. how hard will that be and whats the ballpark cost on these components??? and can i get c.l.e guts in 2.1 ... and then what happens if i find 1.87 which seems like the more common set... with 1.87 gears is my boat going to go slower? i dont think i can afford to loose any rpm on top ideally i want a solution that gets me into the 6200 range rpm wise....

[TEXAS20225]

?? cle, sporty, Torqmasters are the same guts, fat shaft is the last style of sportys and Torqmasters the bearing for both size shafts are the same and use the same carrier these are heavy duty gears you probably had fishin mota stuff in that coned case that popped. ive been building gearcase for a long ,long time over half the guts i have found in cles are fishing motor stuff as all the early one had the 13/16" dia Propshaft which all the fishin mota stuff is that size there are so many details i would hard to try to explain them all might be faster with the there are a lot of cases see what you can find who set up your case??? why did it pop so soon

[TEXAS20225]

PS i have been running a coned fishing motor case for 7 years never lost a bearing or seal. Ive surfaced the props since i coned it twisted to nearly 7000 quite a few times 225 pmax on a bullet ( it depends on a lot of stuff thats a trade secret jk lol. i should say im running a 280 now with a coned tmaster

[patchesII]

i recieved the empty case from him and swapped in the stock guts from my 1985 2.0 liter xr2.

Hopefully you didn't just screw some internals in the case without setting it up correctly. I can tell you from experience that doesn't work for very long.

[mariah2]

Hopefully you didn't just screw some internals in the case without setting it up correctly. I can tell you from experience that doesn't work for very long.

That is what I was wondering. Are you experienced in setting up a gearcase? For instance, how did you set the pinion depth?

[TEXAS20225]

yes its not plug and play!!!! pinion height and forward gear lash settings have a small window they are not optional

[tylerdelorme]

it was put together by my marine mechanic. its not something i would attemp.

3 questions

1.what should i expect to pay for small shaft cle gearset with the rear filler plug

2. if i post something in the wanted section do i just say im looking for a small shaft cle gearset with the rear filler plug. or is it called something else...

3. if i switch to 1.87 gears what effects will it have on my perticular rig and what can i expect performance wise compared to the 2.1 i had?

[tylerdelorme]

well somebody must know.... or have an idea

[patchesII]

You'd just about be better off buying another complete gearcase. If your case is still good you can sell it to recoup some money but that's my opinion

[tylerdelorme]

what can i expect from 1.87 gears vs the 2.1 that it came with?

[TEXAS20225]

what Erik said !! your obviously not a racer you would not notice anything except a slightly slower take off

[tylerdelorme]

theres no trade of or shift of the power band? if 2.1 gears dont change rpm but make the boat accelorate quicker why doesnt everybody run 2.1 there must be more to it than that.

[TEXAS20225]

if you have all the answers why waste you time here

[tylerdelorme]

this thread has helped answer most of my questions. and i think now i know which direction im going with my lower unit repair, i never got an answer to the last question i posted about the 2.1 gearset vs 1.87

"if 2.1 gears dont change rpm but make the boat accelorate quicker why doesnt everybody run 2.1 there must be more to it than that."

lower units are expensive and moneys hard to make. i dont feel im wasting my time.

[redgambler]

If you go down 2" in prop size with the 1:87 gears you ought to be about the same as you was. 28" with 2to1's about the same as 26" with 1:87.

[FrenchPhil]

In theory, smaller ratio = fastest top end speed IF the boat is light. SST120/Champ/F1 cats are roughly 1:1 on the speedmasters.

[pyro]

The 2 liter is better off with 2:1 gears.