Re: plastic gear on 200 h.p. Mercury xri
Grain of Salt...
"A common failure. The metal worm gear heats up and then the plastic crankshaft teeth are melted,and wiped.Mercury did a recall about the top bushing it was reduced in size,so it would not expand too large and create drag by binding against the hole in the block, but the part number remained the same.The new bushing was identified by a symbol on the flange end.I have a replacement Quicksilver engine,that was replaced under warrenty(becase of the problem),and it wiped the crankshaft gear again.The cause was the top bushing was not changed when new engine was installed.
Mercury is well aware of the problem,there solution in later years is to delete the rotation pickup alarm on the oil pump that sounded and announced the oil pump drive failure(mainly not in time to advoid problems),so now you don't know about the failure until the engine seises up and stops cold.
The problem is in the 2.5 liter V6 line."
:facepalm:
{{{{Runs to check symbol on bushing flange}}}} Sry moff........Maybe a direct call to Merc is in my(your) near future.
IF and I mean IF, I have no clue, I'm just reporting the news.....heat expansion is in fact stopping the drive gear(maybe some but not all), perhaps by the time a guy can get his hands on the things, it's cooled down and rotating freely, thus masking itself....yes broke is broke, pre-mix and be done, agreed.
Would be nice to know though if there is just one failure mode or two or three......Dog reports one type, this guy reports another, both seeming reasonable.
I have done some research and seem to hear more of stripping/melting mixed in with bits and pieces of teeth everywhere type....indicating(IMO)a locking(heat expansion induced evidently) up by the drive gear. Perhaps a sudden locking up snaps the gear into pieces as well....IDK.