Over the last several months, I've noticed a significant
clunk from my port
Yanmar SD31
saildrive when I back down to set the
anchor. No problem in forward, just reverse.
I suspect that I've rounded off the ears on the reverse (upper) side of the dog-clutch. Has anyone else experienced this?
According to my manual, replacing the reverse side is much easier than the forward side, as I only have to remove the shifter (on the side of the SD) & the top of the SD, & then drift the
gear (& bearing) out with a stick through the shift hole.
Has anyone else done this? Are there gotchas I should look out for?
The (horizontal) input shaft from the
engine ends in a crown-gear. The top of the (vertical) driveshaft has 2 crown-gears (fwd & reverse) that are mated to the input-shaft
gear & are always spinning (in opposite directions) when the
engine is on. The dog-clutch is splined to the (vertical) driveshaft, & engages either the top (reverse) or bottom (fwd) crown-gears, thereby connecting the engine to the driveshaft.
The dog-clutch itself is relatively
cheap ($95 at Toad Marine) but the 2 crown-gears (which show in my
parts manual as: "upper gear
assembly" even though they're just gears) list at over $1,100 EACH!
If the dog-clutch is slipping, should I also replace that reversing crown-gear?
Has anyone bought one of these "upper gear assemblies"? Is it more than just a gear?
Finally, what should I do to make sure this doesn't happen again? The shifter *
seems* to be shifting all the way over.
TIA