The other night we were riding, and a few times I felt the transmission slip. I'm pretty sure the prop wasn't cavitating. 2 of the times it happened we were just idling (slowly increasing throttle). We had more ballast in the boat than we normally put in (usually we have around 600lbs, this time we had probably 900lbs). <BR> <BR>It's a velvet drive transmission (72C I think. It's mated to a Merc 315hp MPI). The fluid looks like it's full (although I only checked when the boat is on the trailer) and it definitely doesn't smell burnt or anything. <BR> <BR>Any ideas? <BR> <BR>Thanks <BR> <BR>Trash

Low oil. Check it while its hot.

Either lighten the load or plan on rebuilding the transmission real soon. <BR> <BR>When you say you had more ballast, are you saying you had a total of 900 lbs, or did you have 900 lbs of lead in addition to the ballast tanks?

Rod are you kidding me how can you not interpret that it was only an increase of 300 lbs. Trash its def not the weight.

"Low oil. Check it while its hot." And in the water, not on the trailer.

Rod, <BR> <BR>I have no factory ballast. The ballast is all water bladders (600lbs in the rear trunk, 300lbs on port side beside doghouse). There are usually 2 people in the boat and 1 boarder. There is no way that adding an extra 300lbs should make the transmission slip, especially a 72C which has a huge load rating. <BR> <BR>It looks like the fluid is low. I ran the boat on the water, then checked the level and it was low. I added some on the trailer as the dipstick tube is hard to get to without burning myself on the exhaust tube. I'll check it again when I go out next. The crazy thing is that on the trailer with the engine off, the fluid level shows past full on the dipstick. I'm just afraid of overfilling. <BR> <BR>I wonder where the fluid went to? There is no signs of leaking in the bilge area, and the transmission is clean (i.e no signs of drip stains). It's possible I guess that the fluid is leaking through the cooler and into the water supply I guess. I was pretty careful when I changed out my fluid last time to measure the same as what I took out. <BR> <BR>Trash