Smart craft gear box pressure alarm

[Luke Nelson]

Hi All,
Does smart craft v1 have a gear box pressure alarm or just the pressure reading?

Basically I blew a shaft seal on a PTO pump on a ZF 286a, that pumped the gear oil into the steering and fried the clutches. The gear locked in Fwd, not Rev like the selector was… so it shot ahead when berthing and made a crunching on someone else’s marlin board..
We are looking at a way to not have to happen again. It is running a Metaris Vane pump. Vickers v20 copy. Is there better pumps or was it a bad luck thing?

Thanks Luke

Topic

[Luke Nelson]

Thanks Tony,
I got the report on the GB today and it cooked the secondary clutch. Parts are on the way as the gear was only 800 hrs old. Electronic shift block is getting a strip and clean before going on the spare box.

I ran the engine the next day( mainly to pump oil around the GB and shaft seals). The oil levels were fine with no oil loss. I would have about 7 bar engaged pressure fwd or astern and 24 bar in neutral. I cant really explain how it happened as the oils from the gear hadn’t had a chance to mix with the steering oil by the time the engine was turned off.

So back to the alarm. As I had low lube oil pressure or volume I assume I should have seen it? Is there a Smart Crap alarm?

Thanks Luke

[Tony Athens]

Metaris is a “want-a be” copy of a Vickers pump, although I believe they make a decent product…………….That should be one thing you should consider..

Next——-If you only lost the fwd clutch on the 286 and it happened at docking speeds, it would probably be cost effect to rebuild vs. a new gear ( if that is all that really happened) ..

Next–if you go that direction, be sure you replace the breather valve on the 286 case– case pressures should me be that high to do what you said.

You are 100% sure that is what happened and the the gear oil cooler was not the real culprit?

Your diagnoses is extremely odd..

Tony

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