Anyone have one of these? What a piece of %*##@!!!!! Bad, bad, design and craftsmanship.

I have a 9hp for my Four Rivers EBADS that I bought two years ago. It runs like hell, but I will give credit to the cheap Chinese Lifan motor. It starts and it runs, just needs an oil change every now and then.

As far as Orion's manufacturing, here is my list of problems:

1) No thread lock was applied on their T-bar universal joint. The nuts were a half a thread from falling off the very first time I had it out.

2) The pivot bushing (for the T-bar) cracked within a month. Shortly after the other cracked. Clearly the design was not rigorously tested.

3) The shaft housing supports are held on by small machine screws on the motor end and a muffler clamp, yes a muffler clamp on the prop end. The bolts on the muffler clamp stuck out over an inch, caught my waders on them and tore them. The clamp has to be continuously tightened. Well, just last week one of the supports cracked by the machine screws. Now I have it in the shop getting welded.

Bottom line, don't waste your money with these guys. Clearly not professional fabricators, more like stoned high school shop students. I tried to file my complaints at the beginning, then just got tired of dealing with them and took matters into my own hands be fabricating a "strong" universal joint. When I get it back from the shop, I will post a pic showing the slots they cut in the belt housing. It looks like a stoned shop student made the cut.

Like to see pics, just saw the side view of unit and didn't look promising

Please provide pics, as stated.

Should have bought a dixie.

Yeah I saw the mail box one

Dixie ftw!

Is he ever gonna come back or did he say all he needed to say?

Like I said, it is in the shop getting some weld work so I can't post pics yet. This is their long tail, not the surface drive. I do like their idea of the centrifugal clutch, but overall just poor craftsmanship.

Still waiting to get it back from shop. Hard to get small weld jobs done here in Iowa during harvest season. No need to worry about it anymore, just picked up a 1751 Excel Shallow F4 w/Mud Buddy Black Death 5500. Little bit faster than the layout boat. Wife finally gave in to upgrade since it won't be long until the two year old boy is out there with me.

Dixie is out for good, guy at belts and drives macon said a dude in lusiana is gonna make a few, highly doubt it.and for one yuppies above the mason dixon line dont have the technological advancement to creat a mud motor, thats why their surface drive looks like it was built out of a plumbing store
*except backwater h2o*


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