Grinding noise at V-Drive ?????

[GMLIII]

Any ideas as to this grinding noise at my v-drive location on my 2017 G-23? Please note the grinding noise only occurs when boat is in neutral and not in forward or reverse. Thinking maybe the clutch is getting ready to fail.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q1S...w?usp=drivesdk

[Scooter G]

Ouch, that sounds painful. How many hours do you have?
You are a year newer than my '16, and that makes me nervous

[GMLIII]

I have 591 hours. Just started happening at the start of the season. Taking to dealer today for repair.

[GMLIII]

Dealer diagnosed the issue. A bad bearing in V-drive and some metal shaving in the bottom of the V-drive. Complete V-drive replacement required per dealer.

[Scooter G]

Dang, sorry to hear!
Looks like you'll be running in the back up boat for a few weeks.
What are they thinking on the E.T.A.?
A rebuild is out of the question? Nowadays, I imagine shops don't run the rebuild route because they have to warranty the replacement, so it's new or nothing.
Sounds like a $6000-$7000 price tag, I mean I have no idea, but purdy sure it's not a cheap start to the Season.

[GMLIII]

For all others needing a v-drive replacement for any G series Not Under Warranty, the price tag from the dealer is $3,800 for the Vdrive and $1,300 for labor ( 1 and 1 -1/2 days) for a grand total of $5,100.00 Be prepared to bend over. A rebuild was not an option from the dealer and I was not going to shop the repair out. Life goes on.

[SilentSeven]

Ouch. Sorry to read this.

Not that this helps...but that figure seems sorta reasonable for a new unit installed in a 2 days. What's not reasonable is that it failed at 600 hours. :/

I'd keep the v-drive and look to have it rebuilt and sell it. Or, sell it as a rebuildable core. Rebuilt it has to be worth at least half to two thirds of a new unit.

[GMLIII]

SilentSeven I agree. Dealer said they had seen Vdrives fail with no transmission fluid or cracked units with transmission fluid in the bottom of the boat but this is the first incident in which the unit failed with the proper amount of transmission fluid. Good advice on keeping the old Vdrive.

[SilentSeven]

Just wondering out loud....if the transmission / shaft were out of alignment (in a non-trivial way), could that cause the bearing failure? If this is even possible? I would suspect only some bearings would be at risk (like say output shaft rear bearing...). Did the dealer provide more information other than 'it's broken'?


Edit: Was curious about possible repair costs. Found these guys in FL just via a web search. Seem to consult via phone and/or with send in. $600 to $1200 range.

https://www.simplicity-marine.com/ve...borgwarner.htm

[GMLIII]

SilentSeven I did have a shaft replacement maybe as you stated, it was not lined up properly causing bearing drive failure many engine hours later. I will ask dealer that question.
Dealer stated there were metal shavings in bottom of Vdrive when they ran a magnet down it

[SilentSeven]

Interesting. If the boat is not disassembled, would be interesting to inspect the current alignment. Now I have no idea if a misaligned shaft could cause a trans failure but a 600 hour failure is curious.

Working theory is that side loading from a misaligned setup puts enough pressure on a bearing to trigger a failure....

Sent from my Pixel 7 using Tapatalk

[jpwhit]

Misaligned prop shaft typically causes the seals to fail. Never seen it cause the bearing to fail.

[GMLIII]

Update to all, on my v-drive replacement. There were 3 v-drive Nautique replacement alone at my dealer on SML this summer, one of which was my G23 with 560 hours, another G23 with only 210 hours and the 3rd Nautique boat but I don't know the hours. I don't think this is a widespeard quality issue like the prop shaft failures for model years 2016-2018 but it is still alarming that these v-drives are failing with such low hours. I wrote Nautique a letter after my v-drive replacement and was expecting at least a response back from them since this was the 3rd Nautique I have owned, but I have heard nothing back from them. Nautique has some work to do with showing a little courtesy and customer service with their customers. The quality of these boats has slipped over the years.