Hello all,
I was going to post at a later date but as a thread has been started on the SD 60 I will add what we have been experiencing recently and what I have placed on another forum. Just for those that are not aware the SD 60 has plate clutches not cones as per the SD 50.
" Hello everyone, Just some information sharing. We had new
Yanmar 40 HP motors and new Yanmar SD 60 saildrives fitted to Sunshine last June (2015) We are just starting to experience some issues with the sail drives. We have just turned over 400 hrs on each
motor and then we started to experience a time lag between putting the
gear from forward to reverse. It would be 2 to 3 seconds or more before the
gear would engage. This then occured when we went to put the
motor back to forward gear.
There is a technical bulletin that was sent out to Yanmar dealers in July 2015 advising of a very similar situation to one we are experiencing at the moment. It is worth researching foe Yanmar technical bulletin YATB2015-010-M SD60. Definatley worth a read if you have SD 60 sail drives. "
We had a whoops moment coming into a marina pen when the motor would not go into gear at a critical time and we bumped the pen. Luckily no damage.
Since
posting the above and having one scary moment we had the saildrives examined by a Yanmar licenced
mechanic who carried the mods as per the technical note but the fault would not repeat itself and we hoped this had
solved the issue.
Unfortunately the fault returned within a couple of days. We are currenltly sitting
on the hard on the Gold Coast in
Australia. The local Yanma dealer/mechanic has inspected the saildrives and also done a examination and found that gear lever tolerance that is required between the gear lever and gear cable is way out and cannot be compensated by any adjustment. Our sail drive have sequential
serial numbers so I believe they came off the assembly line one after the other.
The previous
mechanic had reported the problem as a warranty issue and this has been accepted by Yanmar. I recieved a
phone call from Yanmar
head office
service manager who advised that I was not the only person experiencing the issue here in Austalia. I was advised that a "fix" had been identified but
parts were required to come from
Amsterdam and would take a week or two to arrive.
To undertake the
repair the motors have to be disconnectd from the
engine mounts and slid forward prior gaining access to the
saildrive gearbox. This can be undertaken
on the hard or on the
water and should be done in a day or two of reciept of the spare
parts.
Its definately inconvenient as we are trying to make our way south to home but the people from Yanmar have been very helpful and keeping us informed as things progress.
When coming out of the
water we had our worst experience yet and nearly collided with some seriously expensive boats when the SD 60's failed to engage in gear at a crucial time while manouvering.
I will update on CF as things progress.
Greg H