Volvo Penta MD2040 damper plate failure

[AlexCheek1978]

hi guys

I lost all drive while motoring in Santa Monica Bay. Heard lots of clanking and rattling. Pulled the MS15A gearbox and found the damper plate completely destroyed. I inherited the boat last month and someone on the dock mentioned the previous owner ‘didn’t get the shaft properly aligned.’ I feel that might have caused the failure.

The Volvo plate, part # 872809 is about $1100 from the dealer.

Looking at the destroyed plate it appears to be an R+D 22W87. I can source this for much cheaper, but is it the right plate for my engine/reverse gear?

I would love to hear about anyone’s experiences. The MS15A gearbox is stamped ZF and bears strong resemblance to the ZF 15 MA

[skipperpete]

That’s an R&D plate, not the original. A bad alignment usally affects the rear bearing on the gearbox and probably the engine mounts, rarely the flex plate. I’ve got my gearbox out at the moment and the drive plate is a substantial “Vulkan” one, floppy rubber bushes and ramps, quite heavy too.

[AlexCheek1978]

Originally Posted by skipperpete

That’s an R&D plate, not the original. A bad alignment usally affects the rear bearing on the gearbox and probably the engine mounts, rarely the flex plate. I’ve got my gearbox out at the moment and the drive plate is a substantial “Vulkan” one, floppy rubber bushes and ramps, quite heavy too.

Copy that on the alignment info. I think this plate was on its way out when i got the boat- very rough at idle fwd or reverse and then smoothed out once the rpm were brought up. What might cause this plate to disintegrate like this? The polyurethane bushings were in pieces and the two faces of the plate completely sheared off one another.

Maybe this R&D damper is not compatible at all. I definitely don’t want to buy another one to find out!

[skipperpete]

Yes, agreed. The other cause of drive plate failure to a certain extent is high engine idle speed, rough shifting technique and folding or feathering propellers, all of these conditions put a high impact load on the drive plate.

[FPNC]

The R&D is a good plate. The R&D 'W' element is rated to 135 nm of torque. Your engine would make under 100 nm of torque. Normally these plates fail after the engine stops from wrapping a line or hitting an object. Which is a good thing versus breaking something much more expensive.

If you want, you can call PYI in Bellingham, Washington and discuss moving up to a plate with a higher rating. PYI is the distributor for R&D in the USA.

[SV Confianza]

When we pulled our damper plates on our MD2040s they were both completely destroyed. With have feathering props. Ended up paying the $$$ to replace with the Volvo parts.

Very happy to have switched to Betas and not paying Volvo parts prices and dealing with multiple shady Volvo dealers.

Realize this is off topic, but it’s still so crazy. Almost got swindled by a Volvo dealer and found out they had already been arrested for defrauding the department of defense. https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/o...pany-charged-0

We contacted Volvo directly, said we didn’t feel good about what the dealer was doing (refusing to repair, telling us we need a whole new engine package). We told Volvo in email this company had been accused of fraud. They only responded back that we have to work with the dealer directly and they can’t help us.

That dealer is still on Volvo’s site to this day…