Borg Warner rebuild blues

[Mark Brinster]

We purchased a 47' Litton Perry cutter last September and after a shakedown cruise in the Florida keys the tranny had a meltdown. We had it "rebuilt" in Miami... took 3 weeks and when the company sent us on our way we discovered that the motor would not start in neutral. You'd start the engine and the shaft would be spinning forward...move the linkage an 1/8 inch and it would be spinning in reverse. I don't even want to go into how I discovered this... The company said we needed to clean out the spool valve.. which we did..many times and it had no effect. Well just out of Luperon, middle of the night, slogging into it we lost forward gear.... no can go. It took 5 days of smashing, tacking to make our way to Puerto Rico where my phone worked. I called the company and they told me to clean out the spool valve again. I did and it didn't work. Now I cannot motor for an hour without losing forward gear. Has anyone even heard of this before? 2 mechanics, upon seeing this weird hyper sensitivity where the motor cannot start in neutral, scratched their heads and said... "wow...that's really weird".

Best

Mark Brinster