Transmission thoughts

My transmission has had a dirty neutral for years but lately it seems like it's getting worse. My gut feeling is it doesn't have to much time left. It also is a little noisey in reverse. It was rebuilt about 5 years ago, I gave the guy 2 transmissions in bad shape and he took all the good parts made a good one. Now I been looking at rebuilt velvet drives on Craigslist for 850$ which look bran new in the pics but we all know how that can go. So I'm thinking just biting the bullet and getting a bran new one from skidim. If I go that route is it recommended to replace dampener and oil Cooler? I'm just up In the air which route to take so thoughts would be appreciated.

Cole,
My concern with purchasing a Velvet off Craigslist or Ebay would be the trans has only had a clutch pack thrown in it and they call it a "rebuild". I feel the noise in reverse is the planetary gear set getting sloppy. I'd say that the person who made one out of two trans's for you didn't do anything with it. Personally, I'd keep running your existing until it gets real bad. It's too bad we don't have Eric who had Fantastic Finish Marine anymore. He sold the business to one of his employees and then went on to another line of work. I recall the last couple times someone has tried to contact FFM, they had problems even talking to him.

Shop around for a new Velvet. Skidim is a great company but they aren't always the best with pricing.

Us Lakers don't have as much to worry about as you Fish guys, I wouldn't wanna chance venturing too far offshore with the potential of trouble, how far out do you go?

Pete do you know if I went with a zf what would be needed to be done to get it to work? I'm guessing I would need to move engine quite a bit. I've heard good things about them also. Lot guys use them with Diesel engines, they are set up with a trolling valve that allows limited slip.

Cole,
I don't believe swapping the Velvet to a ZF wouldn't be that bad. Both are made with the same SAE pattern to bolt to the same bell housing and the same input spline to fit the damper. I'd have to look at the length difference between the two regarding moving the engine forward but I don't believe it's very much. With the big hull of the Fish, I doubt it would make much of a change on hull performance. I like Gary's idea of checking out. fishtheclassic.com

lucky in stuart, you only have to go as far as 20 to fish, up here in central fl you have to start at 20 miles and go out 50 or more.   Use to lighten my wallet quite a bit with the Hatteras getting .5 to .75 mpg.   or 150 to 190 gallons a day for fishing.