About Hale Marine
Hale Marine has been in business since 1953, in Warsaw, Virginia, on Totuskey Creek. Chris is second generation. As he puts it on his channel, he's a second-generation transmission specialist with over forty years of experience repairing Velvet Drive, ZF, Paragon and Hurth marine transmissions.
What we do
We rebuild Velvet Drive, ZF/Hurth, CR-2 and Paragon marine transmissions. We always put a new pump on every transmission. As an official Velvet Drive distributor, we buy our parts directly from Velvet Drive, and that's what lets us afford to do it. Most independent shops can't.
We built our own test stand from an old lathe, some gauges and a three-phase electric motor. It runs at two speeds, 535 rpm and 864 rpm. Chris's way of looking at it: if he gets good operating pressure at 535 rpm, which is much lower than anybody would ever run an engine, he knows the unit's in good shape. We run a rebuild for an hour and a half on the stand, and that time is what catches problems like a selector valve that starts cross-feeding after about an hour.
We keep a 5,000 square foot warehouse behind the shop, with Velvet Drive components in stock.
Free advice, whether you buy from us or not
Chris talks to people from around the world and gives free advice, and he'll tell you he talks himself out of money all the time. The YouTube channel works the same way. Chris videotapes every transmission that comes and goes, and most of the guides and problem articles on this site come from those videos.
Veteran-owned
Chris is a veteran.
Related: official Velvet Drive distributor, rebuild service, how we rebuild a transmission.
