trim ram for bravo 3.

Started by Donnyboat, April 06, 2019, 07:34:48 AM

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David Hall

#15
I just got my trailer back from the shop today.  New bearings and seals, new rotors and calipers, new electric actuator, no more hydraulic at all.  New tires all around, new wiring and led lights, new winch.  Cost me a ton of dough and I won't make the mistake of parking it across the street from the boat launch again.
I'm waiting for shipment of a replacement wobble roller and I will be ready to pull the boat out and tackle the end cap replacement.  These Mercruiser end caps are Aluminum and the zincs are attached with stainless machine screws.  Very very easy to strip the aluminum threads in the end caps and end up like mine.  Couldn't install new zincs on the ram cuz the screws wouldn't tighten and in a hurry to complete the work I got careless and broke the stainless screw off in the end cap.  So now I got the new end caps to install.
And best of all!
I found an aftermarket kit that acts as a new zinc mounting block on the end cap.  It attaches to the end cap with the two screws and remains there forever.  Your replacement zinc has a North on one side that slides under a tab on the new base and then locks down with one stainless steel machine screw into a stainless steel threaded insert in the base.  So your never going to trash those soft aluminum threads again and your only replacing one screw to attach one zinc on one ram, repeat for other ram.  I don't know how to post a link but I'll post pictures as I go through this.  The big question is what are the rams going to look like after being in the marina for 3 months with no zincs on the rams?  Hoping they're still okay but it could prove challenging.

David Hall

Bought the Sierra kita and new end caps and quick change zinc kit from Sea shield marine.  They have a base plate that attaches to the end cap mounting with two screws where your zincs would normally attach.  Then your new zinc attaches with one screw into a stainless steel insert.  Got the rams apart Easey peasey.
The new parts installed and back together ready for paint.  While working on them I blew a hole in one of the hydraulic lines.  Upon closer inspection all four had weakened to the point of bulging just in front of the fittings and we're at risk of blowing under pressure, so a new set of lines was ordered from SEI. Mercruiser wanted over 400 for the set and the SEI set was 105. Also the bushings were cracked and deformed so a new set of 16 of them was ordered. 

milne

Nice work David,
                       It really does show the corrosive conditions our boats operate in and how much maintenance is involved as well.
 
Enjoying your up dates.........

Col

David Hall

After rebuilding the rams and replacing the hydro lines, I got back in the water for testing and all worked excellent, except for the new overheating issue.  at troll speed I had normal temps but as soon as I stepped on the throttle to cruise the temps would shoot up, so I shut it down, tried again and same thing, well after about 100 hours of tearing things down to inspect, from the cooling water seacock to the exhaust mixing elbow all was good.  I replaced every hose and clamp on the engine earlier this year. No problems there, started looking into the closed cooling system and all looked good there also.  Someone recommended I do a pressure test on the cooling system,  if it loses pressure just a matter of tracking down the leak, might be external might be internal.  rented tester from my local auto parts and the tester itself leaked, so I purchased a test kit of my own that came with a guarantee that the test equipment would not leak.  pumped the system up to 11 PSI and held for 30 minutes without losing any pressure.  decided to test my radiator cap and discovered it would only hold 5PSI before it opened up and lost pressure, my engines system is designed to operate at 13 PSI.  Bought a new 70 dollar themostat and problem solved, then I noticed a knocking sound coming from my sterndrive.  its only 4 years old and has a few hundred hours Bravo III XR didn't sound normal so I took it into the shop that installed it and they opened the upper case and found both topside bearings are shot.  in his 50 years of working on outboards and stern drives he has never seen this before. got the new bearings installed and today he busted the lower case open to inspect it and found every cooling water passage is plugged with marine growth, mussels and sea grass, he thinks it was impossible to get any cooling water through it.  So I view this as good news too.  no cooling could explain why the upper case bearings burned.  Maybe another week and I will get it back.  Just in time to take it in to the boat cover shop to get a full boat cover fabricated, then its off for a full hull cleaning polishing and sealing and detail, then I can cover it up and park it for a few weeks before getting one last rock fishing trip on it this year.  of course all this work is really cheap, or its free? NOT my boat is spelled with two Ts, BOATT.