Tortuga's Lie wrote:
Which engine/transmission do you have? Mine's a Westerbeke 40 with a Hurth transmission and I've noticed a "clunk" when i shift into reverse. of course the thing is 30 years old now.....
Careful there! Our "clunk" from neutral to Fwd or Rev became more pronounced each season. I kept thinking it was my imagination until finally the shaft key was eaten up and the shaft pulled out of the coupling.
Assuming it's the same as the W50 setup, I'd highly recommend that this spring you back out the two set screws, undo the four coupling bolts and se if you can pull back the shaft half of the coupling to inspect your shaft. Had I done this I would have seen the set screws had eaten away at the little dimples, and the key was worn away such that it had a Z shaped cross-section. You may be able to at least visually inspect the key without disassembly. The more the key lets go, the more all rotational and thrust forces are solely on those set screws.
After drilling in deeper and replacing the screws with something that actually inserted into the shaft a bit, the clunk was gone. We later replaced the shaft. After wrapping a line around the screw last season, I'll be checking it out this spring. That's a hard way to stop a diesel at 2000 RPM.
Sorry for the digression, back to the trans.