Home › Forum › Ask A Member › pinion gear blowout on newer 25/35’s › Re: pinion gear blowout on newer 25/35’s
Well after a couple of hours of playing with one of these ’04 gearcases, I found out the hard way that you CAN NOT switch the pinion gears from a short-neck/older version of the gearcase with the newer long neck version.
The splines on the pinion have a larger diameter on the older version. So if you do this, YES, the pinion will engage forward gear. But as soon as you drive the prop shaft through the forward gear and into the forward bearing, this locks things up to the point where things will almost not even turn.
And on top of that, the shift detent spring and 2 little ball bearings won’t go in the right way. Let’s say there is about a half dozen of those little balls scatter across my garage and I won’t find them again for a month or two…only accidentally. Feeling pretty deflated about wasting all that time!
If only I could find a few driveshafts for these newer units for short cash. Have a few gearboxes in mint condition with no driveshafts.