Newbie info on outdrives wanted.

Does anyone have any links or book recomendations on I/O drives?

It's something I would like to learn more about, but the only information I can find is from commercial websites which list lots of items for lots of money, none of which I know anything about.

I just want to read up on them, what types/brands/models are recomended for what application and horsepower. As well as the components that make them up.

What if I have a hull but no power yet, what all do I need to get to put the power to the water?

I am thinking of building a small boat just to see if it's something I want to do, but if the bug bites hard enough, I'm sure I will want to move on to something bigger.

I'm still at the "thinking about it" and research stages and would like to go into this without too much mystery.

Jesse

 

This can get you started. All outdrives, through evolution, got to be similar. It is possible to design a boat with HP specification and later choose the drive. Like an outboard, they are made to fit a typical application.


http://www2.volvo.com/volvopenta/global/en-gb/products/

 

Hi Jesse,

Welcome to the Boat Design Forums

You might find this interesting:
http://www.boatdesign.net/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=902&size=big

It's an old Mercruiser Alpha parts assembly diagram (provided a long while back by Konrad Marine). It's the assembly diagram for the outdrive portion only of the stern drive not including the transom assembly. I thought I had one somewhere for a bravo drive but I can't locate it at the moment...

 

Thats great! More please!
Actually that's one of the things I was looking for. So what I get from that is the portion shown attaches to/through an assembley on the transom with the transmission on the other side?

Jesse

 

No, there is no separate transmission with Mercruiser Alpha or Bravo drives - the shifting is handled in the outdrive (in that schematic, you can see the foward and reverse gears in the lower unit)