"And a couple LONG TIME mercru
"And a couple LONG TIME mercruiser techs said dont use a reverse prop on a std rot drive, but I did, just had to use the shifter like my Gravely Tractor, forward was reverse and reverse was forward, I used it maybe 10 times before I was able to replace the prop, it worked great !! that was the 1.98r, when I went back to the 1.65r uppers I had my drive guy checked the gears later and they were fine, you run your boat in rev dont you? well Ok.. not for long periods or 4K rpm, just think 4 times longer than 1k rpm & backing down.
I agree with you Ricardo it's not a good idea to use the 1.46 vs the 1.8 and understand the big/small tire diff, I've actually was forced to run 255(free) vs 265 tires on my truck showing 5mpg slow on the speedo, and yes i'm paying more in gas over the long run, but you gotta do what you gotta do to get by, 2 yrs later I'm still using them now with some bail-out money from Obama I can buy some new ones,
Granted if he was to use the drive long term gas consumption will go up and more strain on the bearings, gears(it is an 888 drive though, designed for a V8), coupler, crank and bearings, but how much? 10%. Yea It will depend on the weight of the boat overall and how much he keeps the throttle burried.
but to get the guy boating and if he has cheap and easy access to an $80 prop to get boating for a couple months till he can get the $200 gears swapped out and $400 for someone to re-shim the drive?
He might not do to bad. If I had a set of gears sitting around I'd send them to him, at least for $20
And conditions where this does or doesn't work, this may be where it works fine at least for the short term.
Yes, it's not a good idea but, as long as he's not in danger of hurting himself or others and if it's just short term, hopefully not too much harm.
We did our thing, which is why we are here right? giving opinions, trying to help others?
I wish I had someone to tell me "Don't use that OLD Crank Gear that was used with a Fiber Cam gear with that NEW Cam gear, it will be junk in months"..
guess what they were/wouldn've been right.
Well the cam was from a '74 Nova anyway.. and the engine block. ( I didn't change it, but I did partially blueprint and fully balance it, inlines don't need to race balanced by the way and not to 1/10th or 2/10th's of a gram, yea it's smooth)
Safe Boating!!!"