Borg Warner Tranny Trouble

Ok, So I have a Borg Warner 72CR/C 2.5 to 1 gear ratio. Its attached to a Perkins T6.354m. Now the Problem is that the shift selector has been sticking. The longer it sits without use, the harder it sticks. It can be freed up from moving the shift selector back and forth until it clicks into forward and reverse.

No gear noise while in either gear. Since the first day I got the boat It makes a "Thud" when you put in reverse and while in reverse it makes a high pitched whirring sound that doesn't sound irregular.

So my question is, How to fix the shift selector from being stuck? because its a big pain in the rear to have to go down and free it up before we go out and not to mention after I've been in forward for hours and it sticks while im trying to go into neutral and trying to dock.

Also more information on the subject, The transmission was ran dry or close to dry for a long period of time (300 hours or more?). I'm youthful and made the mistake of not checking the fluid. I don't make that mistake anymore.

Probably a month before the boat sat for the winter I discovered a milky substance on the ceiling of the Cap/dipstick so I excavated the oil and added new oil, ran the engine few times and then repeated and ran the engine again and milky substance no longer appeared. my guess was water had gotten in tranny from bilge getting too high.

If you have had saltwater incursion inside the transmission, my guess is it's not long for this world.

But call Harbor Marine in Everett and ask for Mike in the transmission shop, 425-259-3285

I would be hard pressed to find it was bilge water, more than likely you have a transmission raw water cooler that has failed. Take it out and have a radiator shop check it out or replace it. Then drain it, fill it again...run it and do it again many times. Hopefully you have not destroyed the tranny.

Ouch! I had a tranny cooler fail and sea water got into it. When I finally checked it it was "milky" but it was too late. It needed a total rebuild and you don't want to know how much, but it wasn't just the casual boat buck.

Now I check the tranny fluid just like other fluids before turning on the motors each AM.

Have it checked out by a pro. Immediately.

Edelweiss said:

If you have had saltwater incursion inside the transmission, my guess is it's not long for this world.

But call Harbor Marine in Everett and ask for Mike in the transmission shop, 425-259-3285

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^^This^^

I just removed and sent and had mike rebuild mine. I did all the labor myself. It's not cheap. I needed a total rebuild. You are about to lose yours.

If you are taking it out yourself I would really recomend trying your local transmission shop. I did, $750.00 and a 1 year warranty. Present owner says it works fine. The job was done in 2010. It's an old school gearbox not rocket science.

YMMV

Rob

Datenight said:

If you are taking it out yourself I would really recomend trying your local transmission shop. I did, $750.00 and a 1 year warranty. Present owner says it works fine. The job was done in 2010. It's an old school gearbox not rocket science.

YMMV

Rob

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Date, my local repair shop couldn't repair mine. It was a waste of time. They couldn't locate the parts needed and I lost two weeks.

I think some are jumping to the conclusion that there is/was an oil cooler leak. If the "milky" substance was only on the oil cooler cap (as you stated) and the oil you drained was not milky, then it was just condensation and you are fine. Having the cooler checked may still be a good idea and replacing it if you don't know how old it is may be good insurance as they do not last forever. 3 years for the copper ones and 7-8 for the cu/ni ones is good service life.

As to the shift lever sticking. I would start by removing the lever and cleaning and greasing the detent ball and it's spring which are behind the lever. While you have the cable disconnected, make sure the problem is not actually in the cable itself, they can fail too. When you hook the cable back up, make sure the lever is exactly in the center detent when the helm control is in neutral and that it is exastly in the forward and reverse detents when the helm control is in same. If not, there are adjustments at the cable end and control to ensure this. You don't mention if you have more than one control station so detailed instructions are difficult at this point.

Ditto here. A much better approach.

Brooksie said:

As to the shift lever sticking. I would start by removing the lever and cleaning and greasing the detent ball and it's spring which are behind the lever. .

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I had this exact thing happen to me with a gummy on transmission mechanism not allowing the shifters to engage the transmission properly. A good cleaning with WD40 and all was OK. A routine addition to the PM list occurred.

Just before I purchased my twin screw Tolly, it had BW VD 71C trany cooler leak into port side trany fluid. PO needed to have complete rebuild. Luckily he used the trany shop I've used for decades... rebuild was perfect - but costly to the PO.

I agree that if milky look was only on top of dip stick that it may be simply condensation... but NO water should get into trany fluid at all. Or, as you mentioned - do you really let bilge water get high enough to get over fill neck of trany?? In any case... if ANY water moisture was/is present in fluid at very least drain fluid and replace immediately.

If it is your control cable that is what’s sticking then you need to perform the following magic, or completely replace the cable (if it’s the shift lever actually sticking on/in the trany then follow directions given previously):

1. Go to top of cables and off hook from shift and/or throttle handles
2. Off hook where bottom of cable attaches too - there place towels or container to receive soon to occur lubricant over flow out of cable end.
3. With relatively flexible/stretchable hose (its relaxed ID about same as cable OD) stretch/feed it over top of cable at top end and clamp/seal it onto cable exterior. (a dab of silicone sealer spread around on cable exterior and then tightly stretched electric tape under small hose clamp works wonders to maintain a seal – two small clamps are good too) Have about 1' of the hose above cable end and fasten/hold it in plumb/vertical position.
4. Fill hose approx 3/4 full with lubricant of your choice (WD-40 or other type penetrating lube).
5. Solidly clamp small bicycle pump pressure end onto top of flexible hose and pump just enough pressure so flex hose expands slightly. You may need to apply slightly more air pressure as the lube works into cable casing. Depending on length of cable you may also need to add a bit more lube. Eventually the lube should come weeping out at cable bottom.
6. Remove apparatus and refasten cable top/bottom. Your cable should be good to go!

YRMV

Happy Boat Maintenance Daze! - Art

If selector valve itself is binding, it can be removed and cleaned. Detent ball can also wear a groove and cause sticking. On the web you can find parts diagrams showing you how all fits together, and what seals are needed.

First of all, there is two throttle stations however, the secondary station is directly inline with the main station, Main station is on the fly bridge, secondary is directly below in the cabin and the secondary is like a set of pulleys to connect the rest of the cables together.

Water does fill up in the bilge but not to the oil dipstick, what does happen is that it goes up to probably about the lower 25% of the tranny. This is not saltwater, it is rainwater. I was just assuming that it was leaking into the tranny from underneath. The deck was has two hatches and used to be raised up about 3in so because its a working boat and we wanted to eliminate people tripping and also be able to stack crab pots on my father in law tried to make it so the hatches could be level with the deck. It's level however it leaks bad, Its going to be changed this summer.

We did replace the double oil coolers. In the middle of our crab season, we went out to fill the boat and noticed a lot of oil coming from the exhaust. (what a nightmare) Being our opening season with not very much money and a laundry list of issues we bought one oil cooler from a local marine exchange store for $40 and then after it was installed and tested we discovered we needed another for the transmission and instead of forking out more money we found one at a local exchange store that went out of business and the shop was left open to the public.

SO the oil coolers installed currently are used and is entirely possible that the transmission oil cooler is leaking. however the milky substance (found on the oil dipstick/filler cap) failed to appear again on the final test. Since I'm on the oil cooler subject, I can have them tested without taking them to a shop, I have a free resource for that and that can be eliminated.

I'm already planning on removing the transmission even if the repair needs to be just cleaning the shift selector, If I take the transmission out do I have to worry about the shaft and prop sliding down and having to pull it back up to reconnect? I don't know if it will happen just seems like it could happen and im not sure that it would be very light to pull back up.

Also im about 95% sure the cables are not the issue. They are old however they have free range of motion. they are currently disconnected.

Bottom line again transmission drives well its just a problem with the selector getting stuck. So it seems to me that I could be lucky enough to clean the selector and get rid of the issue. Also thinking about rebuilding the transmission on my own or having my father in law do it (mechanic). I'm more than willing to pay for a rebuild in a couple months when I can afford it.

Another question, does anyone else experience a "thud" when going into reverse gear?

CaptSoterio said:

Water does fill up in the bilge but not to the oil dipstick, what does happen is that it goes up to probably about the lower 25% of the tranny. This is not saltwater, it is rainwater. I was just assuming that it was leaking into the tranny from underneath.

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Bilge pump(s) with float switches - cheap insurance, little to no hassel!

Have one however, the float switch kept getting stuck open so until it was fixed I didn't leave it on all the time. However It has been recently fixed.

CaptSoterio said:

Another question, does anyone else experience a "thud" when going into reverse gear?

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You have engine idled way down to real low rpm before shifting? Not knowing your engine nor its setup for connection to trany there could be mechanical reasons not inside trany that makes a "thud". Do you have any universal joint(s) from trany to drive shaft?

Your boat a Uniflite Hull?

Art said:

You have engine idled way down to real low rpm before shifting? Not knowing your engine nor its setup for connection to trany there could be mechanical reasons not inside trany that makes a "thud". Do you have any universal joint(s) from trany to drive shaft?

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yeah engine is almost always idled down, well as far as it can go, it idles around 750rpm when warm.

universal joints? doubt it.. it is pretty standard looking when you compare it with the diesel troubleshooting book.

I've got pictures somewhere of the transmission to stuffing box if you want to look...

uniflite hull, I don't know what that is, as far as I know its a displacement hull. the boat was made in 1962 so its pretty old don't know if uniflite is that old or not. its the vessel shown in my avatar

CaptSoterio said:

yeah engine is almost always idled down, well as far as it can go, it idles around 750rpm when warm.

universal joints? doubt it.. it is pretty standard looking when you compare it with the diesel troubleshooting book.

I've got pictures somewhere of the transmission to stuffing box if you want to look...

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Sure on the picts - would help all posters to best understand.

She's not by chance V-Drive... is she??

CaptSoterio said:

uniflite hull, I don't know what that is, as far as I know its a displacement hull. the boat was made in 1962 so its pretty old don't know if uniflite is that old or not. its the vessel shown in my avatar

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Uniflite was a famous pleasure boat builder from 50's into late 80's. From outboards to 50 +/- footers; in many models. Uni's were also built for Vietnam delta patrol boats by the thousands. Some larger Uni hulls were purchased unfinished and customized into work boats... especially fishers. I owned a 31' Uni pleasure boat. Very well built crafts. Your boat's hull reminds me of Uniflite in age group you mention. But - I've never heard of a full displacement Uni... planing and semi displacement is all I believe Uni mentioned they built.

You been on the water long?

Best luck with your boat and repairs!

Any idea who the builder is? Reminds me of a Roberts gillnet boat we used to own. Minus the flybridge house though.
Larry B

It's a Royal Craft and I've heard people say it reminds them of a Roberts and I have seen some Roberts boats that I could relate it to. I'm 26 years old now, Used to be a commercial fisherman in Alaska and then bought this crabbing vessel for the Puget Sound in the summer of 2011. Took it out in the summer of 2012 for "sea trials" more or less just recreational fishing and trying to get used to the boat and being on the water then we fished commercially in the Puget sound fishery in 2012-13 season. we fished nearly 2-3 times a week or so for 5 months. Put a lot of time and experience into myself in a short amount of time. Got stuck in a few bad weather situations but definitely learned from it. The mouth of Admiralty inlet is not very much fun in a SE 30knot wind with 12 footers smashing over the wheelhouse window. I've got some video of us crabbing somewhere. Pictures are going to have to wait I've gotta head to work.

CaptSoterio said:

It's a Royal Craft and I've heard people say it reminds them of a Roberts and I have seen some Roberts boats that I could relate it to. I'm 26 years old now, Used to be a commercial fisherman in Alaska and then bought this crabbing vessel for the Puget Sound in the summer of 2011. Took it out in the summer of 2012 for "sea trials" more or less just recreational fishing and trying to get used to the boat and being on the water then we fished commercially in the Puget sound fishery in 2012-13 season. we fished nearly 2-3 times a week or so for 5 months. Put a lot of time and experience into myself in a short amount of time. Got stuck in a few bad weather situations but definitely learned from it. The mouth of Admiralty inlet is not very much fun in a SE 30knot wind with 12 footers smashing over the wheelhouse window. I've got some video of us crabbing somewhere. Pictures are going to have to wait I've gotta head to work.

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Good goen CaptS! Get It On!

TY for providing Royal Craft brand name. Looking forward to video link or picts when you get time. Of course, ask any questions here as your boating life expands... you'll probably get more answers than you'd like or need... but that ain't all bad!

Cheers!! Art

CaptSoterio said:

It's a Royal Craft and I've heard people say it reminds them of a Roberts and I have seen some Roberts boats that I could relate it to. I'm 26 years old now, Used to be a commercial fisherman in Alaska and then bought this crabbing vessel for the Puget Sound in the summer of 2011. . . . . . we fished commercially in the Puget sound fishery in 2012-13 season. we fished nearly 2-3 times a week or so for 5 months.

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I fished gillnet in both Bristol Bay and Puget Sound for a number of years. . . . back in the 70's . . . . before you were born!! Puget Sound was a total different fishery back then. . . . we fished nights only and Tribal boats and seiners fished days. Had a few nights in the Straits off "R" buoy when it was so rough you couldn't haul the net. Two choices. . . hang on the net and ride it out or cut it loose and let it go!!