Difficulty shifting into forward

[Breakin Away]

I have the C30 folks checking for me also -- they are saying 5/8" ID and the flange bolt head is 13/16".  But I'm not sure if a 7/8" will fit the recess (not near my transmission.)

-k

Actually, after closer inspection this past weekend, on my transmission there isn't really a recess. There's a pretty wide flat area around the female threads, with a very slightly raised "lip" in the middle of the flat area. It looks like even if the spacer was too wide, the fiber spacer might deform over top the little lip. So it might not be critical have the OD inside this lip. Unfortunately, I meant to measure all this stuff, but I crawled out of the area to get a measuring device, and got involved with something else and forgot to go back and measure it. So that's why it has to wait until next weekend (or later, depending on some other weekend commitments). While I don't think it's critical, I want to double-check it first.

[KWKloeber]

Not every HB has a recess, some are flush, some raised. I have to order 50 or 100 of the buggers, so want to make sure they are "universal." 

I've seen pics of ones that would defo take an 1" OD washer, some with a recess on the bolt flange.  Yah nevah know.



Note the vent hole below on the hex head.

-k

[Stu Jackson]

and the flange bolt head is 13/16". 

Mine is 11/16ths.  M25 engine

[KWKloeber]

Thank you!  I misquoted myself.....

The flange bolt FLANGE is 13/16".
Isn't the hex actually metric?  Can't recall, I've just had a wrench wrapped with red electrical tape for 20 years - never look at the size!

[Breakin Away]

Yes, it's all metric.

[Breakin Away]

I did finally find a fiber washer that fits well on the dipstick for my M35B motor/transmission. It is 5/8" ID, 3/4" OD (thus 1/16" wide"), and 1/16" thick. 40 cents at True Value. Pics attached with part numbers.

[Solitaire]

I too have problems shifting into forward gear. When coming off the mooring, it takes four attempts before I'm successful, that is I push into forward gear, wait a bit, then a little accelerator, but nothing then back to neutral and try again.

I've had my boat (C34 Mark II #1801) about eighteen months. When I bought it, the Edson shift lever was hitting against the pedestal guard tube. Last September I replaced the original two lever system with an Edson single lever side mounted engine control.Now the lever doesn't hit anything.

My mechanic says he's adjusted the cable as much as possible and that now the gearbox needs to be pulled out and overhauled, in particular the shift selector.The only thing that makes me question this advice is that once I've been motoring for a while, say fifteen minutes, and I take it out of gear, it will go into gear on the first attempt every time. This may be a co-incidence or it may be related to the gearbox warming up. I would have thought that if the problem was cable adjustment, the problem would remain regardless of how long the engine had been running. The engine (M-35B) only has about 260 hours on it, so the gearbox should not be too worn.

Does anyone have any suggestions on solving this problem?

Thanks

[Jack Hutteball]

Solitaire,

I had the same problem with our boat within the first year we bought it.  Had less than 50 hours on the engine.  Had the dealer adjust it twice (not resolved and the lever was not hitting the pedestal guard) It was pulled from the boat twice and worked on by a locale mechanic which did not solve the problem.  It was replaced under warranty as no one could find the problem.  I was fortunate to have that happen the first year.  I have always felt it was a defect in the manufacturing  process, but do not know for certain.

Jack

[lazybone]

Try disconnecting the shift cable from the transmission linkage and operating the trans shift arm by hand.  Take note if it travels farther. 

[Breakin Away]

I too have problems shifting into forward gear. When coming off the mooring, it takes four attempts before I'm successful, that is I push into forward gear, wait a bit, then a little accelerator, but nothing then back to neutral and try again.

I've had my boat (C34 Mark II #1801) about eighteen months. When I bought it, the Edson shift lever was hitting against the pedestal guard tube. Last September I replaced the original two lever system with an Edson single lever side mounted engine control.Now the lever doesn't hit anything.

My mechanic says he's adjusted the cable as much as possible and that now the gearbox needs to be pulled out and overhauled, in particular the shift selector.The only thing that makes me question this advice is that once I've been motoring for a while, say fifteen minutes, and I take it out of gear, it will go into gear on the first attempt every time. This may be a co-incidence or it may be related to the gearbox warming up. I would have thought that if the problem was cable adjustment, the problem would remain regardless of how long the engine had been running. The engine (M-35B) only has about 260 hours on it, so the gearbox should not be too worn.

Does anyone have any suggestions on solving this problem?

Thanks

I'm sorry to hear that you may have wasted your money on a shift arm that didn't fix the problem.

I think your mechanic may be lacking a little creativity in saying that he's adjusted the cable as much as possible. He (or you) can drill another hole or two in the mounting plate and get a whole lot more adjustment latitude. That resolved the issue for me. See my replies #22 and 27 for information on this.

But before you do that, you need to refer to your engine manual for the specs on how far the shift lever (on the transmission itself) should be moving. There should be a couple of specs listed, depending on which hole your cable is connecting to. (I suggest the inner hole, as that gives the longest travel of the lever.) Actuate the shift lever at the transmission with the shift cable attached, since that will let you know if your cockpit lever is limiting the motion. The travel should be the same forward and aft, and greater than the mfr spec in each direction. If not, then you you need to get it right, possibly by repositioning the mounting plate as I described in reply #22 and 27.

I would not consider a rebuild unless you confirm that the shift lever complies with mfg specs, because if you rebuild and the problem goes away, it may come back later due to wear/damage from the shift lever not moving far enough.

My own transmission was rebuilt by the prior owner, and I wonder if the shift lever being out of spec is what required the rebuild in the first place.

[KWKloeber]

The service bulletin covering adjusting the travel is on the tech wiki.

[Breakin Away]

The service bulletin covering adjusting the travel is on the tech wiki.

It seems that there is a placeholder for it in the Wiki, but the actual link to the PDF is missing. (I can't find the message right now, but I remember us discussing this before and realizing Westerbeke had reorganized their website, breaking many of the Wiki's links):

https://www.westerbeke.com/service%20bulletin/sb_136.pdf

This 1984 service bulletin is unremarkable for owners of later engines, because our manuals were updated to incorporate its recommendations. However, the pictures can be useful for visualizing the required throw distance of the shift lever. (Picture worth a thousand words.)

As for the issue of the pedestal's shift lever not being able to throw the transmission's shift lever far enough to be in spec, please see my attached picture to see how I fixed the problem by adjusting the mounting plate. The two holes with worn paint around them are the ones that were originally used to mount this plate to the transmission. You can see by the red circles that I enlarged an adjacent hole, and drilled a new hole, which enabled mounting the plate 1/2" further aft, causing the shift cable to throw the shift lever symmetrically forward and reverse (with some minor adjustment on the normal linkage screws), and in agreement with Westerbeke's recommendation.

After drilling the holes where the red circles are, I polished the rust off of the mounting plate and painted it up nicely, but failed to get a picture of it. Next time I am down at the boat I'll get a picture of the modified plate as mounted on the transmission.

A little Google searching shows that this issue (insufficient throw into forward gear) is fairly common for the Hurth/Westerbeke installations on multiple boats, having been reported here and on Sailnet and CruisersForum, and elsewhere. So this modification does have potential to help a lot of people. But it all has to start with a measurement of the actual throw distance of the shift lever on the transmission. If the throw does not go far enough into forward gear (per Westerbeke's spec), my modification could help.

[KWKloeber]

 Au contraire, Mon ami

The link to the PDF's, is right there on the "manuals" TW Page, and I can open the link and PDFs on my iPhone, which is by design compatible with nothing else in the  Solar system and likely Milky Way, and locks up about every third time I open a browser ---  so I have high confidence it's OK on a PC.

Here's the entry:
Universal/Westerbeke Searchable (PDF) Service Bulletins

I feel your pain about Westerbeke's website, and I tend to shy far away from posting links to webspaces because they are constantly changing.

Ken

[Breakin Away]

I did not make this up.

I went to the section that seemed to make sense: Diesel Engine - Mechanical

http://c34.org/wikiwp/?rdp_we_resource=http%3A%2F%2Fc34.org%2Fwiki%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DDiesel_Engine#Mechanical

Scroll to the text that says "Transmissions:Hurth Transmission Cable Adjustment PDF file" to confirm that it is a dead link.

[KWKloeber]

Ahhh ha.
. Thanks for letting me know that precise location. GONE.

It's an example of what as a project manager I warn people of, "double specifying quote, will you will you call the same thing out twice.