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anthonyp0808 · 11-06-2017, 07:52

I have a 2015 Lagoon 450 with Yanmar 54 engines on SD60 drives.

Engine hours about 970.

The starboard engine handling is quite erratic. It appears as if the clutch is not properly engaging at first. On adding revs, there is a bit of a clunk, before it engages, then it drives OK. It appears to be worse in astern.

I have checked the cable measurements as per Yanmar manual (35mm) and they are OK. When is neutral there is a small amount of movement (a couple of degrees) on the starboard drive shaft attached to fore/aft gear cable, no play on the port drive.

Any ideas? Is this adjustable? If so, how?

If it requires a replacement of the clutch mechanism, can that be done in the water (there is a far amount of room in the engine compartment)? Any idea of costs?

Houston450 · 28-11-2017, 12:31

was hoping someone would reply to this. I too have the same issue and did the same checks, that all checked out ok. I'm guessing to start, change fluid and see how it goes. Anyone else?

anthonyp0808 · 28-11-2017, 13:55

It is a design fault with the early SD60s. Apparently an undersides bearing.

Yanmah provided replacement parts (the complete clutch mechanism) for both drives even though warranty is limited to 500 hours. I paid for the labour to fit these.

Work can be done in the water, and cost in Turkey was €1200 plus vat for labour in Marmaris (I quouted €850 for labour in Bodrum but marina fees there are €240 per night for my cat)

Captain Bill · 07-12-2017, 06:20

Yanmar replaced the transmission section of both my SD60s at 1200 hours in the US due to this known defect. My US warranty was 2 years and the failure happened at 2 years 1 month. The second drive had not yet failed but had a serial number in the range of units known to have the defect. They also paid for the haul and blocking. I got to pay yard fees and miscellaneous parts such as new seals which were not cheap.

The transmission sections were "re-manufactured". Apparently the fix is better done in a controlled environment by specialists in doing the repair. This was according to a former ZF employee that had been trained to do it in the field. ZF makes the SD60 drives and according to him it was a known problem in ZF drives 5 years ago. I suppose someone will be getting my old drives after they have been fixed.

Krabimike · 15-01-2019, 07:09

Can anyone share the serial number range that the SD60 has had this issue?

Kazamaran · 14-02-2019, 04:11

Hello Crabmike. I was scanning through and picked up this issue so thought I'd throw in two cents. I was on a delivery run last year on a 2015 leopard with the same engine drive set up. Several days out STD engine started making weird noises. At first we thought it might be gear engagement- cone slip ring. We were running two motors at the time and didn't realize we were losing thrust. We shut it down and eventually ended up in Charleston. Started up engine once in calm waters to try and troubleshoot. Could not exactly reproduce the sound. Motored around and everything seemed fine. Took off several days later and pinned the noise down to around 1400 rpm and loss of drive thrust to some extent. Immediately hit the books to read up on clutches, cone packs and whatever else to troubleshoot. Pulled into Thunderbolt Marine to investigate. Got a mechanic on board to investigate. He took the cone pack out, lapped the clutch cone assembly, changed the gear oil and reassembled about 600 dollars later. So we test drive this baby thinking we got it fixed....no where else to go. Same condition at roughly same rpm. I finally got frustrated and dove the saildrive to investigate. Nothing obvious. Nothing interrupting saildrive, rudder or anything else. Had to haul. Investigation revealed a spun prop hub. Tight enough to not find on hand rotation but dislodged enough to not handle the torque past 1400 rpm. Eventually it would've given way and created some real imbalance. But shy of breaking stuff we would always shutdown and use the other motor until we needed to lightly maneuver. Anyway, just a quick short story to help out. Good luck with Myanmar. Kazamaran

Captain Bill · 14-02-2019, 07:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Krabimike

Can anyone share the serial number range that the SD60 has had this issue?

I cant give you the full range, but my original SD60s were S/N 242641 and 242642. If your S/N are before that I would expect you are in the range. I have no idea what the upper limit is on the affected drives S/Ns is.

ilkayersoy · 26-04-2019, 23:59

I have the same problem on m Jeanneau SO 50DS. The engine is 4JH4-TE and saildrive is SD60-4. Especially at sternway, the clutch is not engaging but after some extra revs, it's engaging with a clunky sound.

Anyway, authorised service has checked and they found the same chronical problem at SD60. (Serial number is 193539 btw.)

They said "it is not under guarantee because gurantee period has been passed!": What aboıt the possible cost? Around EUR 800.- for labour and arround 1200 EUR for the parts! Total EUR 2.000.- much or less. !!!

I did not accept that because the source of problem is not usage or normal wear and tear. The problem is chronical and it just happened late, that is the case..

I also send a complaint letter to Yanmar Marine Global Japan and also European head office at Netherlands. 7 days and still no response.

We will see.

Blackie Swart · 27-04-2019, 04:46

Do a search on posts by member panache5000 - they do a replacement upgrade kit to sort out this problem.

Captain Bill · 27-04-2019, 06:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackie Swart

Do a search on posts by member panache5000 - they do a replacement upgrade kit to sort out this problem.

Panache's kit is for SD40s and SD50s and has nothing to do with the SD60 ramp angle problem.

Captain Bill · 27-04-2019, 06:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by ilkayersoy

I have the same problem on m Jeanneau SO 50DS. The engine is 4JH4-TE and saildrive is SD60-4. Especially at sternway, the clutch is not engaging but after some extra revs, it's engaging with a clunky sound.

Anyway, authorised service has checked and they found the same chronical problem at SD60. (Serial number is 193539 btw.)

They said "it is not under guarantee because gurantee period has been passed!": What aboıt the possible cost? Around EUR 800.- for labour and arround 1200 EUR for the parts! Total EUR 2.000.- much or less. !!!

I did not accept that because the source of problem is not usage or normal wear and tear. The problem is chronical and it just happened late, that is the case..

I also send a complaint letter to Yanmar Marine Global Japan and also European head office at Netherlands. 7 days and still no response.

We will see.

It's certainly a low S/N, but according to Yanmar it usually occurs in much less than 900 hours. like yours mine showed up in reverse at about 1200 hrs, but only because I have left hand props, The problem is on the normally "forward" gear which assumes aright hand prop. A left hand prop uses the "reverse" gear for forward. Do you have left hand props?

The Yanmar service I took it to had to appeal the first denial of our claim before Yanmar agreed to repair it, so don't give up hope yet. The appeal took about 10 days in the US.

Blackie Swart · 27-04-2019, 10:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain Bill

Panache's kit is for SD40s and SD50s and has nothing to do with the SD60 ramp angle problem.

Cool - that's a good thing then.

ozsailer · 27-04-2019, 20:17

Hello Anthony,
the SD 60 issue is well documented now. The main issue is that the gear will not engage due to internal components not engaging correctly. If you do a search here on CF for Yanmar SD 60 you will find a number of posts that relate to your issue. Look for two under ozsailer that detail the problem and resolution that was required. It should be covered under warranty. Please note the SD 60 are clutch driven as opposed to the SD 50 which has cone clutch with totally seperate issues.

Greg H
Lagoon 440.

ilkayersoy · 29-04-2019, 09:13

Here is the answer to my request from Yanmar Europe. They send me a cropped version of another bulletin ref no YMQTB17-017. (You can find it below.)

They say exactly,

"Attached a snapshot from YMTQTB17-017. This bulletib shows us that after investigation there are mukyiple root causes for shift delay. Either thıse root causes are a non Yanmar wotkmanship or material failure, and therefor non warrantable."

Innthat case, they vounted sveral reasons and according to them, non of them are under warranty.

And at prevous answers, they said
"the chronic problem is duw to wrong installation/adjustment at the boatbuilder or installation vompany. Due to lavk of maintenamce the clutch pavk can b3 worn out, every 250 hours and or year the oil be replaced, when not performing that prpcedure this also can cause concerns for the friction plates in the cşutch packs resulting in a shift delay."

As I can see, they are using whatever argument they can to not to acceot warranty.

In the end I asked, "since there is not any responsibility of Yanmar. why did you accep lots of warranty issues?"

As a result, for now, Yanmar does not accept any responsibility.