Hi everybody! I have had my 365 for three years next week. I just had my brother fly down from Colorado to sail for a couple weeks and my v drive was all gummed up. I recently had new seals put into by a nearby mechanic and have realized he never even touched it. It was totally seized and my brother and I flushed it and freed it up enough to do full revolutions on the shaft by hand. We pulled the drive already but I need someone I can trust do get this job done right. I am thirty year old chef with not a lot of money. Can anyone let me know how screwed I am? Or if we could press new bearings ourselves? My older bro is pretty bummed both of our vacations for the year are now sitting in Tampa bay at dock. (Fly fishing has been great from shore though. So we have that going for us.
Hi: Sorry to hear about your V drive troubles. I am not as expert as some on this forum, but I can point you in a couple of places to find some answers.
Walter gear is still very much in business Waltergear.com, and you can get any parts you might need. With a little ignorance and confidence, the vee drive isn't all that complex and you can probably fix it yourself. There is a manual on the Sailingseadragon.com website thanks to one of our wonderful other 365ers. This tells you what goes where etc.
If you pull the 4 socket head cap screws out of the top where the heat exchanger tube is, you can look inside. The plug on the bottom usually has a magnet on it. Check that and see how much metal it was making. Some is normal, but if it gets really bad, time for new gears. If you rinse it out with an appropriate solvent and then inspect the gears, you should be able to get an idea of how bad it is. Pitts are bad on the teeth and if there is a lot of back lash in the gears, also not good. Walter Gear will rebuild them, but it isn't the cheapest option. In the end sometimes going with a high quality job is cheaper in the long run though.
You can also buy the parts you need and rebuild it yourself. A kit is available from Walter I understand. There are at least two other topics down farther on the forum on the topic of Vee drives, including some with good pictures. There are some boat unique configuration out there. So check your data plate and configuration before ordering parts.
Check Pete's info on getting it aligned properly when you re-install, that is also critical to get right.
Good luck
Here's and exploded view of the Walter V-drive. You only need a 2 jaw puller, hammer and an assortment of different diameter drifts to get it disassembled. Getting the lock nut off the output shaft without buggering up the threads on a very expensive part would be your biggest challenge.
(http://i1121.photobucket.com/albums/l505/banjoband/vdexploded.png)
Usually a worn out V-drive will exhibit backlash associated with hammered splines on the pilot shaft and u-joint yoke. But in your case not turning will indicate a broken ball bearing. So there are chunks of metal in all your bearings. If it ran under power like that your gear set may be pulverized too.
Walter Machine has set the price of replacement parts so that it will always be cheaper to purchase a new unit.
A little know tip is that there are older models of V drives out there that you can pick up cheap that will contain
100% compatible parts for the RV-10
(http://i1121.photobucket.com/albums/l505/banjoband/uj209.png)
This is an older Walter Drive model UJ-209 that has all the main parts found in the RV-10. These typically go for $150 because nobody uses them anymore or knows what they are.
If you can tell what bearing busted I can send you a used one in very good condition provided your gear set is salvageable. You may have to stone the teeth to clean up the sharp edges. Walter Machine will not sell you an individual bearing. Only a very expensive and marked up rebuild kit for a few hundred dollars. But you can buy them direct from a bearing house.
Pete
I can't thank you enough for taking the time to reply! So here is where I am at. For some reason I have the RV-20 which has been discontinued for some time. I drove it over to ft lauderdale to trasmission marine after speaking with a mechanic who was knowledgable about Walter v-drives. He mentioned it is quite large for this model Pearson and said he would give it a look and tell me what he can do. Then i received the great phone call from him asking if it came from a sunken boat. So he is saying it would need entirely rebuilt in which he would basically only keep the housing, costing about five hundred less then a new one. A new one he estimated at 3500. He said when he opened it it was just a ball of rust. I am planning on verifying this of course before continuing to attempt to fix the problem. Though my gut reaction is that he is honest and this is what I'm stuck with. I guess the questions now are: if I buy new do I need to buy a unit that matches the size of the Rv 20? Are there simialar units out there that have internals parts that would make this still achievable at a lower cost. Should I attempt to find a used Rv-10? Again I can't thank you enough for sharing some knowledge with me. First boat i have owned with a v drive. It scared me a little prepurchase and has developed into a self fulfilled prophecy.
If you look at page 114-116 on http://marinegears.com/catalog/TMI_catalog_wm.pdf. You can see some of the differences between the different models of Walter Vee drives. It shows that the RV 26 is a replacement for the RV20.
The RV 20/RV 26 is a bigger unit than the stock RV 10/Pearson special, and capable of taking more power. Some of the dimensions are different as well, so it is possible who ever installed it had to modify other parts to accommodate the RV20. Because the hp rating changes with the rpm, it's important to know if you have a gear reduction and if you have the original engine. Both drive shafts between the transmission and Vee drive and prop shafts can be modified, but it's extra hassle if it isn't necessary.
According to the table from Walter on the link above, an RV 10 on a diesel (.75 factor) turning at 3000 rpm according to my math has a hp rating of 2.7x.75x(3000/100)=61 hp. Our boat still has the Westerbeke 40 at 40 hp, so I am well below the rated hp. Using the same math, the 2.7 turns into 8, so the RV 26 at 3000 rpm could handle 180 hp.
If there was a gear reduction in your transmission, that would have to be taken into account. If you had more power, that might also explain the RV 20.
Smackwater,
I have a R-V26 in my pearson 367. I did not install it (was already installed when I bought the boat), but I can give you dimensions and tell you want was modified to make it fit. Give me a holler if you need any info.
Read this thread and what Pete had to say about what I have in my boat. Might or might not be relevant to what you do.
http://www.pearson365.com/forum/index.php?topic=1176.15
In the RV-10 the pinion shaft #9A is the weak link. In the RV20 they beefed up the pinion shaft #9AJ by making it one piece with the larger double U-joint yoke. It also has a larger oil capacity. The gear set appears to be the same parts. And they stuck an oil pump on the back. The output shaft has a larger flange on it, for the 6 bolt pattern for the Walter coupler. I have seen the 3 bolt pattern on the Rv-10 flange fail. One bolt falls out then the remaining 2 shear off. Rv-20 looks like a better choice for the Pearson versus the RV-26. Only question remaining is, was it a stock upgrade by Pearson?
Tell me what gear ratio the RV-20 is. I'm assuming you still have the 2:1 gear reduction in the V-drive, or is it 1:1. FYI I have a spare RV-10 but its not assembled yet. I might be interested in what's left of your RV-20. Sounds like it ran dry or something bad like that Pete
Lets not forget the 3 bolt output flange is designed to be the weak spot. These bolts will shear before major damage happens to the rest of the drive chain. Twice in thirty years I have tested it and it works. Allen