Reverseing gear

[netwonc]

Upon engaging the reversing gear, it sounds like two gears trying to engage but not doing so. It makes a loud "growling" noise while engage. It turns the prop but is worrying me. It doesn't "whine" like it should but "growls". Should I be concerned or am I being overly concerned.
Thanks for your help.
Newton

[Don Moyer]

Newton,

"Growling" more or less fits into the category of terms that has been used to describe the normal sound made when engaging reverse in an Atomic 4. There's always the proverbial first time for everything, but to this point we've never seen a reversing gear actually fail, no matter how awful it may sound.

The sound should be much less profound in neutral, and should be totally gone in forward.

The thing that makes the small pinion gears noisy in reverse in most cases is that they've become pitted from water that found its way into the crankcase for some reason or other that wasn't removed in a timely manner; but again, we've never seen the gears actually fail. Part of the reason for their survivability, of course, is that we don't have to use reverse all that much.

Regards,

Don