Volvo Penta DPS-A 5.0 Gxi No Power

rlr154

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I have a 2009 Four Winns 22' Funship with a dual prop stern drive and a 5.0 litre engine with 173 hours on it. At low speed everything works fine. When I accelerate the engine revs up, but the boat doesn't accelerate. It feels like a car with a bad clutch. The boat has new(spring 2018) Volvo Props. I took the stern drive off and have it in my basement. I've tried to reproduce the slippage problem, but have had no success. Any ideas or suggestions?
 

Scott Danforth

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Check your shift cable adjustment. You may be burning up the cone clutch
 

rlr154

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I will check the shift cable adjustment very carefully when I mount the sterndrive back on the boat. Is the potential problem with the cone clutch the result of being partially engaged in gear?

I didn't smell a burnt rubber smell. What is a burnt rubber smell a symptom of?

What/where is the coupler hub?
 

alldodge

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I didn't smell a burnt rubber smell. What is a burnt rubber smell a symptom of?

What/where is the coupler hub?

Burnt rubber in the engine compartment mans the engine coupler as stripped out. Its mounted to the fly wheel and the out drive shaft is connected to it. So if you can move slowly along and all is good, but when you give it throttle to get up on plane and boat does not increase, but rubber is smelled, its the coupler
 

Scott Danforth

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Volvo uses primarily a metal torque plate (think clutch plate without friction material bolted to flywheel). unlike the Mercruiser vulcanized rubber unit. however i do not have first-hand experience with every combination. Generally, first non-drive issue on a VP DP drive is the adjustment of the shift lever, if that is good and cone clutch intact, then the spline coupler between the trans and the vertical driveshaft sheared. another thing could be the rubber hub in the prop, however I believe the DPS-A uses the D, I and F-series of props. I know the F series has the same type of rubber hub of the A/B/C/ series of props, not sure on the D and I series.

BTW, it only takes a few hours of the clutch slipping due to improper adjustment to require the transmission to be rebuilt because the cone clutch ate itself.
 

QBhoy

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I’d check your oil in the drive. These DP legs have the cone clutch slip if there is water or the wrong oil in there.
 

rlr154

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I am zeroing in on three possible causes of my slippage problem: 1) The props could be spinning on the prop hubs. The props are almost brand new volvo props and I don't see any evidence of this when I examine the props. 2) Bad coupler hub. I'm not sure how to check this, but I will go over and look at the boat and see what I can see. 3) Bad cone clutch. The stern drive is sitting in my basement. When I removed it the oil level was full (as it had been all last year) and when I drained the oil it looked almost brand new after being in the drive for a full season. There was no water or milky color and no metal particles. I looked over the Seloc manual instructions for disassembly and reassembly of the upper unit. It seemed about the same level of difficult as and automobile rear axle, but I counted 13 individual special tools required. Do people repair these things or do they just purchase rebuilt units? Any more Ideas, thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 

Scott Danforth

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throw the seloc manual away and get the proper volvo penta manual. there is mis-information in the seloc and haynes manuals.

the VP uppers are extremely robust, and fairly easy to rebuild. you do need some special tools.
 

Thalasso

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I am zeroing in on three possible causes of my slippage problem: 1) The props could be spinning on the prop hubs. The props are almost brand new volvo props and I don't see any evidence of this when I examine the props. 2) Bad coupler hub. I'm not sure how to check this, but I will go over and look at the boat and see what I can see. 3) Bad cone clutch. The stern drive is sitting in my basement. When I removed it the oil level was full (as it had been all last year) and when I drained the oil it looked almost brand new after being in the drive for a full season. There was no water or milky color and no metal particles. I looked over the Seloc manual instructions for disassembly and reassembly of the upper unit. It seemed about the same level of difficult as and automobile rear axle, but I counted 13 individual special tools required. Do people repair these things or do they just purchase rebuilt units? Any more Ideas, thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

You most likely have F5's series props on that drive (same as mine) They have no rubber hubs. They are solid hubs
 
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rlr154

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My boat does have F5 props so I guess I can rule out the prop. The other piece of information that I did not mention before is that this boat has always had a high speed wine that sounds like the gear wine in an improperly set up automobile rear axle. It makes me suspicious that there has been something wrong in the upper gear / cone clutch area all along.
 

Thalasso

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