Axis Wakeboard Boat Forum

I was surfing my '16 A20 (110 hrs) this afternoon and all of a sudden the engine quit without any warning. No lights, no beeps, nothing. I thought maybe I had hit something but where we were on the lake there shouldn't have been anything to hit and we were in about 20 feet of water. I turned off the key, waited a couple minutes going over what could have happened with a couple knowledgeable passengers and decided to try to start the engine. It fired right up without any issue. No problems with temp or oil pressure. Smooth idle. When I went to put the boat in gear the engine quit again. I immediately thought something might be wrapped around the prop/driveshaft. I started the boat again and tried to put it in reverse. Again it died immediately. We got towed back to the dock and put the boat up on the lift. I couldn't see anything wrapped around any part of the running gear. I tried to spin the prop by hand and couldn't move it. I checked the engine oil and it was good. I checked the short yellow transmission dipstick and saw fluid on it so I believe that should be good too. I checked the bilge area around the engine and didn't see where any fluids had leaked out.

Any ideas what might have caused the transmission to lock up?

I will bring the boat to the dealer next week but thought I'd run this by the board and see if anyone has experienced anything similar.

Any chance the safety switch got pulled? One that's on the red springy lanyard and is supposed to be attached to driver?

Did you check v-drive fluid? It's under the rear seat, you slide the rear seat forward and pull the fiberglass step out.

Definitely not the safety switch. The boat engine stopped due to the prop/drive shaft/transmission/v-drive locking up. I didn't remove/replace the key or the move the safety switch and was able to fire the engine right back up.

I checked the fluid in the v-drive and it appeared to be at the correct level and it is a reddish color.

I do have a question though - are the transmission and v-drive one single unit or are they separate components?

They're separate components Todd. Check fluids in both.

As said they are separate and there are 2 dipsticks, with 110 hrs have you had the fluid changed in them?

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Has Anyone else received this in the mail? Apparently there could be a problem with some losing V-Drive oil. My dealer had no idea until I showed them. Let me know if anyone needs to see more.

Zoom in to read.

I didn't get that letter, but when I went in at 25 hours my dealer said my v-drive fluid was low. But there was no real indication that it was leaking; nothing of note in the bilge.

I got it a few weeks ago.


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Thanks Tom. I'll try to find the other place to check the transmission oil when I get back in the boat.

I didn't receive that letter. I plan to contact my dealer on Tuesday and drop the boat off there when they can check it out. I'll keep you all updated on what they find.

I found them both and both have fluid in them.
I dropped the boat off at ProMarine today. They're all interested in knowing what happened, as am I. I just hope I can get the boat back before Christmas so we can get in a Christmas Shred Session I'll let you know how it turns out.