Help! Our 08 RZ2 no go!!

[Booms]

Long story short - wife was pulling my son and I and all of a sudden she thought we hit something cause the boat stopped/motor turned off and she heard a clunk. I looked in the water but did not see anying floating. We waited 10 minutes and the motor would start but as soon as we put it in gear the motor would shut off. I jumped in boat and opened the motor compartment and heard water leaking in the boat. To add insult to injury the water is coming into the bilge area now 5" deep and the bilge pump does not work.

We got the boat on the lift and i can not see any damage to the hull, prop, or rudder. But water is still coming into the boat. I tried to spin the shaft but could not spin it.

Does anyone know what the problem might be?

Is it the packing?
The transmission?

[4bw]

Could be those things, but check all the easy stuff, trace all the water lines and ensure they are connected.

Since it is on a lift (remember to put the plug back in you pulled to drain it), when you lower it does it leak with the engine turned off? if so where? If not start the engine, does it leak and where? Be sure you look all around and under the engine. Remove all the panels so you can see all around, under, and behind the engine and drive unit. Climb down in the lockers with a flash light and look around.

This detailed trouble shooting will help the smart guys on the site lead you down the path or get your mechanic moving the right direction.

[Booms]

Thanks for the info. I found the problem.
The front transmission cover has a crack to the entire front of it. That is where the water was rushing in from. My dealer has done all the service and winterization on it so I dropped it off at their shop this afternoon and will call them tomorrow and find out what the dealio is.

I will keep you all posted.

[Timmy!]

Ouch! Good luck! My dealer has seen it where there was some water still in the brass transmission cooler tube at winterization and that water froze and caused a tiny crack in the tube which later turns into what you describe here because the transmission fills full of water.

[bigdaddy_houseboater]

Sounds like the tranny is locked up solid. It either cracked then failed.. or failed then cracked.. Either way... youre a combination of "failed" and "cracked" youre.. FACKED!

[bigdaddy_houseboater]

you realize.. im just trying to make you smile... in a bad time. Hope I didnt offend you..

[Booms]

Bigdaddy no worries. Takes a lot more to offend me. Just bummed right now. The dealer that is located 4 miles from our cottage is 4 plus weeks out in their service department. So the summer would be done. I am happy that the dealer I purchased the boat from will have it fixed in at most 2 weeks. The only down side, they are located 90 miles away.
They said it should be covered by warranty. If it wasn't I would be looking at least $3,000 to fix. I am also feeling better using this dealer seeing they have completed 4 vdrive/tranmission replaces this summer all in Malibu boats. So they know what they are doing.
I will update when I hear more.

[Timmy!]

Good luck! Hope it gets fixed quickly and free of charge for you!

[adamsjstt]

Thanks for the info. I found the problem.
The front transmission cover has a crack to the entire front of it. That is where the water was rushing in from. My dealer has done all the service and winterization on it so I dropped it off at their shop this afternoon and will call them tomorrow and find out what the dealio is.

I will keep you all posted.

Sorry to hear and hope you get it fixed soon and under warranty. Let us no what the dealer thinks may have caused it to crack. Do you no what manufacturer makes your transmission? THANKS

[Booms]

Sorry to hear and hope you get it fixed soon and under warranty. Let us no what the dealer thinks may have caused it to crack. Do you no what manufacturer makes your transmission? THANKS

Adamsjstt - the second thing I asked was "what would cause this?" The head tech guy I was talking to at the dealer said two things could cause this to happen.
1. We hit something and it caused the transmission to lock up
2. A piece of foreign material or a part from the gears broke loose and caused the transmission to lock up.
Either way the gears and shaft have no where to go so they move in the casing causing it to break/crack.

It is weird that they called Tige and Tige said that they have to go through the motor manufacturer and ZF marine (the manufacturer of the transmission and vdrive) for the warranty claim. You would think Tige would want to be transparent with their warranties.
I work for a manufacturer and if the purchased parts that are put in our products fail we take care of the customer first and deal with the supplier second.

I wasn't thinking when I found the crack to take a picture but I will see if the dealer will take a picture so I can post it for everyone to see.

[Booms]

A lot happened today. Received a call from the dealer that is fixing the boat. (This dealer is 90 plus miles from our house.)His head tech looked at the boat and took the v-drive out of the boat and took the attached picture.

That picture was emailed to MarinePower for review. MarinePower looked at the picture and said the v-drive failure was a classic winterization gone bad. When the boat was winterized the water was not removed completely out of the v-drive. Thus when the water frooze it cracked the copper cooling line. With that line cracked, water leaked into the v-drive and forced the lubercation/fluid out of the drive. When all the the fluid was replaced by water the v-drive seized. For this dealer to fix the v-drive it would cost me $3,100.00.
Once I heard this I called the Tige dealer that is located 4 miles from our cottage who did all the maintenance on it. Once he saw the picture he said he was sorry that this happened and he would make it right. He called the dealer that was working on the boat and told them to fix the boat and he would pay them to do it right for me. I have to say that this is top notch customer service. He could have said bring it back to my shop to fix but he relized that one set of hands have already took the v-drive apart and he wanted to keep it that way. Plus he has never replaced a v-drive so I think he realized it might be a bigger job then his guys could take on.

I am extremely happy that the boat will be fixed by the end of next week!

Then a crazy thing happened to me. A guy that I did not know pulls up to our cottage dock and asks if I am the guy with the white and blue Tige that throws the sick surf wake. We talk for a while and he said he wants to buy it off of me. I told him the latest about the v-drive and he was still very interested. Now I am thinking of selling him the boat and getting a new one.

[Iwndr]

Glad to hear they are taking care of you Booms, Sounds like you have a pretty darn good dealer there

[mls6722]

Glad to hear they are taking care of you Booms, Sounds like you have a pretty darn good dealer there

x2 - good to hear you are getting treated right.

just curious - how many outings / hours do you think you put on the boat this season since the freeze crack happened?

[Booms]

x2 - good to hear you are getting treated right.

just curious - how many outings / hours do you think you put on the boat this season since the freeze crack happened?

mls - I would say we had the boat out for 20-30 outings which is maybe 15 hours.

I cant't believe that the boat made it from May to the middle of July before it blew out.

[mls6722]

mls - I would say we had the boat out for 20-30 outings which is maybe 15 hours.

I cant't believe that the boat made it from May to the middle of July before it blew out.

That is pretty amazing.