Borg Warner Gearbox Oil Cooler

[S/V Willow]

We developed a leak in the gearbox oil cooler and saltwater slowly pushed all the oil out of the gearbox over a couple of days. So I removed the cooler and took it to a mechanics who confirmed it had a pin hole leak (and let me tell you that we are in Noumea and I don't speak french so that was an interesting morning). We never ran the engine at all with saltwater in the gear box so we drained the water out and flushed it out with methylated spirits to clear the salt and then put in automatic transmission fluid. I could turn the gearbox on the first day by hand but since then I have't been able to turn it. We are waiting for the part to arrive from Australia so we can't turn the engine over to see if it will work. Has anyone else found this problem and what did you do about it?

[neilpride]

I have in my Perkins a Borg Wagner 71 cr , i tell you what, this is one of the most robust and reliables tranys in the market, you can plug the hoses for the cooler and run the trany every day a bit, to stop salt deposits sit in bearings and other vital parts in the trany, until your cooler arrive, with the new cooler in place , 1 more atf oil change and bingo!!! ready to work.... Cheers.

[jenny2]

Originally Posted by neilpride

I have in my Perkins a Borg Wagner 71 cr , i tell you what, this is one of the most robust and reliables tranys in the market, you can plug the hoses for the cooler and run the trany every day a bit, to stop salt deposits sit in bearings and other vital parts in the trany, until your cooler arrive, with the new cooler in place , 1 more atf oil change and bingo!!! ready to work.... Cheers.

dont run it long at all with out a cooler very dangerous they build a lot of heat borg warner velvet drives are great gears i wouldnt run one over a couple of minutes at low rpm's with out a cooler i've seen stupid people put the wrong wheel on them and run them in reverse for foward end up in the hospital

[S/V Willow]

Thanks for your input Neil and Jenny. We aren't going to run it until we have the cooler back on as we were loaned a manual and it says expressly not to. However the part has now arrived in Noumea and should be delivered down to us on the marina tomorrow. If all goes well I will report back with findings - if it doesn;t go well then we will be too annoyed to respond.