Our
Beta Marine 90 with it's
Hurth ZF45A
transmission has operated flawlessly for almost 1,400 hours but just a few days ago, as we were pulling into the Port Denarau Marina in
Fiji, the
transmission began to make a very significant 'clunking' sound when I shifted into forward. As we were just about to
haul out, I dismissed the problem as worn rubber stops on the Gori folding prop but once the
boat was out of the
water, I could see that the stops were fine as was the cutlass bearing. Now that we're back at the
dock, I've done some more investigation and I've determined that the
motor mounts are OK as is the R&D flexible coupling. Something is definitely going on inside the transmission.
Here's my quandary: We're leaving for
California in a week. I could tear things down now but that might mean leaving everything apart for the next three months (that's how long we're scheduled to be gone) but getting
parts in the US would be substantially easier than getting
parts here in
Fiji. On the other hand, we could wait until we get to
Australia but that's almost 1,400 miles away.
What would you do?
Fair winds and calm seas.