This season I noticed a very slight clunk sound that seemed to be coming from the drive train on my 05 24V. I narrowed the clunk sound down in that it only happened after putting the boat in reverse and then when I went in forward I would hear the clunk happen somewhere between 1500 and 2000 RPM. The cluck would not happen again unless I went into reverse.
My first thought was that the prop was unseating. I put a new prop on over the winter, so it was the biggest suspect. I checked and tighten the prop, but the problem persisted.
The clunk continued over the summer, but didn’t seem to get much worse during the season. Over the summer, I read this post by Dakota on the forum.
http://www.tigeowners.com/forum/show...-340-year-2006
A theory offered for this drive shaft failure was that the bolts came loose that couple the driveshaft to the V-Drive, and eventually got so loose that it sheared the bolts. I made a note to refer back to this thread during my winterization process.
This past weekend I finished winterizing and started exploring based on the info in the thread. I took a mirror and flashlight and quickly found the coupling between the drive shaft and V-Drive. I had the wife rotate the propeller while I check the bolt tightness by hand and all 4 bolts were loose enough to wiggle the bolt back and forth. It’s a tight space to access, but I was able to tighten the bolts with no problem. The nuts looked like nylon locknuts. I considered adding locktite to the threads to prevent loosening in the future, but access under this space is really tough. Instead, I will check the bolts are tight at least once a year going forward and will check on them after the first few runs of next season. Thankfully I caught this before it was loose enough to shear the bolts and cause damage to the drive shaft, V-Drive or Transmission.
Sorry for the long winded story, but wanted to share this in hopes that it will save someone else a headache.
Final take away:
A big thank you to the forum and Dakota for posting his experience. Reading the forum likely saved me the cost of repairs and more importantly downtime during next boating season.
If you have a V-Drive, particularly a Tige V or Ve model (the problem is now confirmed on my 24 V and Dakota’s 24VE) take 5 minutes with a mirror and flashlight and check the bolts are tight between your drive shaft and V-Drive. It may save you too!
My first thought was that the prop was unseating. I put a new prop on over the winter, so it was the biggest suspect. I checked and tighten the prop, but the problem persisted.
The clunk continued over the summer, but didn’t seem to get much worse during the season. Over the summer, I read this post by Dakota on the forum.
http://www.tigeowners.com/forum/show...-340-year-2006
A theory offered for this drive shaft failure was that the bolts came loose that couple the driveshaft to the V-Drive, and eventually got so loose that it sheared the bolts. I made a note to refer back to this thread during my winterization process.
This past weekend I finished winterizing and started exploring based on the info in the thread. I took a mirror and flashlight and quickly found the coupling between the drive shaft and V-Drive. I had the wife rotate the propeller while I check the bolt tightness by hand and all 4 bolts were loose enough to wiggle the bolt back and forth. It’s a tight space to access, but I was able to tighten the bolts with no problem. The nuts looked like nylon locknuts. I considered adding locktite to the threads to prevent loosening in the future, but access under this space is really tough. Instead, I will check the bolts are tight at least once a year going forward and will check on them after the first few runs of next season. Thankfully I caught this before it was loose enough to shear the bolts and cause damage to the drive shaft, V-Drive or Transmission.
Sorry for the long winded story, but wanted to share this in hopes that it will save someone else a headache.
Final take away:
A big thank you to the forum and Dakota for posting his experience. Reading the forum likely saved me the cost of repairs and more importantly downtime during next boating season.
If you have a V-Drive, particularly a Tige V or Ve model (the problem is now confirmed on my 24 V and Dakota’s 24VE) take 5 minutes with a mirror and flashlight and check the bolts are tight between your drive shaft and V-Drive. It may save you too!
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