MERCRUISER warning

THEFERMANATOR

THEFERMANATOR

God
If you are going to go through the trouble of replacing your bellows, spend the extra $100 and replace the trim/tilt sender switches. Got a 27 SEARAY here now that a guy paid $3000 to a shop in Georgia to rebuild the carbs and replace the bellows and shift cables. My neighbor bought it and brought it to me to look over. The shop went to the trouble to replace the bellows, but not the gimbal bearings or switches. Guess what it now needs, gimbal bearings and switches. And of course that means having to pull it all back apart and replacing the bellows and the bearing and switches that should have all been done the first time around. So if your going to tackle this job(or have it done), go ahead and spend the extra money and do it all so your not having to have it all redone again before the boat ever hits the water.
 
wow, $3000 for bellows and a carb rebuild? I need to go up on my prices. I usually replace everything when I do bellows, they get all three bellows, water hose, gimbal bearing, shift cable, shift shaft seal and a gear lube change. I give the customers the option on the trim senders. If its a small boat, i generally discourage them to spend the money on senders, if its a big boat, the sender is a big help. I still have trouble with merc senders lasting more than a year in salt water, especially if the boat stays in hte water, so i try to get them to spend the money where it will do some long term good
 
They billed him to replace the bellows, shift cables(which they didn't do), and rebuild the 2 carbs. This is a twin engine 270 SUNDANCER SEARAY with twin 4.3 liters in it. To top it off when I got it all apart, they had torn both drive bellows and silicone them over to cover the holes. Told the guy he had the SS TITANIC waiting to happen if those bellows gave out on him. And the 2 supposed new shift cables are stiff as can be, and one of them is torn on the outside and rusted completely through. The boat has never been in the water since he paid to have the work done either. I need to see what shop did the work so I can warn others to stay away from them.
 
I hate hearing about people screwing customers on work, it makes my job dealing with people much harder. I run into a lot of people that are gun shy about mechanics working on their boat
 
The guy who had the work done had them rebuild the carbs and told them not to start it so they would be dry and not have ethanol problems(which is why he had them rebuilt). Engine ran like crap and wouldn't idle. Go back and look down into the primary and it's pouring fuel into it through the venturis idling. Pull the carb and open it up and they didn't even get the needle down into the seat and it was just free flowing. My neighbor who bought it had a "boat mechanic" come look at it, and he TOASTED both raw water pump impellers in it(freshwater cooled ALPHA's, so it has pumps on the engine and through hull pick-ups. He ran it for a good 2 minutes with muffs hooked up to the outdrive after my neighbor told him the hook-up was inside the boat. Also told him it needed risers because they were HOT after running it, DUH!). Not to mention all of the fun it was to get apart because of how they lined up the clamps, and not a drop of bellows adhesive was used. U-joints took 7 pumps of grease each, and so on and so on. I see work like this and don't feel so bad quoting him $250 labor to replace the bellows and switches when shops charge $700 around here(and you get this kind of hack job).

Now to find my info on setting up the limit switches and remembering how to PROPERLY put the clamps back in one.
 
the limit switches come with the measurements in the installation paperwork
I charge 3 hours labor(Merc flat rate) for a bellows job, if I add in the shift cable, it adds one hour, changing the gimbal, it depends on how bad its stuck(half hour and on up). To do everything on the transom, start to finish, 5 hours labor. I used to make good money doing them in fresh water, now that I work mostly with salt, it takes every bit of that time. If you add it all up, I think flat rate from Merc is something like 7 hours, spader puts it around 6
 
I don't know alot about I/Os. But am learning about them at my class. But I did help with one job like this on a 4.3 Alpha setup. Our instructor told us exactly what Ferm and Spare have said. We actually took the out drive apart to replace the trim and limit switches. Ended up doing the bellows, gimbal bearing, new shift cable, and a few other small things.
 
flat rate time on trim senders used to be 3.2 hours from Merc, I figured a way to replace them in 30 minutes. I think Merc only give 1.5 now
 
spareparts said:
flat rate time on trim senders used to be 3.2 hours from Merc, I figured a way to replace them in 30 minutes. I think Merc only give 1.5 now
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If the wiring harness's hadn't been so bad, I would have just snipped them off and heat shrink butt connectored new ones on. I went out last night and found out why the shift cables weren't replaced, they were threaded in so tight that the brass cable end was snapped off inside the threads. Si I have a FUN job ahead of me getting brass out of aluminum hopefully without damaging the threads.
 
do you have the Mercruiser special tap for the shift cable boss. Its a non tapered pipe thread, Mercruiser only. That brass is hard to drill out. Teh key to replacing the trim sensors without taking anything apart is a snap on swivel socket, loooong 1/4 extension, some one to pull the wires thru for you and(trade secret) super glue the two halves of the plastic pieces that stop up the hole in the transom plate. You have to work from one side(port works best), so you have to drape the wires over from the other side. If you super glue the two halves together, you can pull them both in place at the same time, use a small tie wrap to keep the retainer in place till you get a screw in it.


BTW, Ferm, you had a 6.2 Mercruiser at one time. I just pulled one down and I'm thinking about using the cam in my buggy. The numbers off the cam are 862562(merc number) and 10505L(cam manufacture). From what I've found, they say its a crane cam 104224. You know any different? I'm planning on running 1/6 ratio rockers with it
 
spareparts said:
do you have the Mercruiser special tap for the shift cable boss. Its a non tapered pipe thread, Mercruiser only. That brass is hard to drill out. Teh key to replacing the trim sensors without taking anything apart is a snap on swivel socket, loooong 1/4 extension, some one to pull the wires thru for you and(trade secret) super glue the two halves of the plastic pieces that stop up the hole in the transom plate. You have to work from one side(port works best), so you have to drape the wires over from the other side. If you super glue the two halves together, you can pull them both in place at the same time, use a small tie wrap to keep the retainer in place till you get a screw in it.


BTW, Ferm, you had a 6.2 Mercruiser at one time. I just pulled one down and I'm thinking about using the cam in my buggy. The numbers off the cam are 862562(merc number) and 10505L(cam manufacture). From what I've found, they say its a crane cam 104224. You know any different? I'm planning on running 1/6 ratio rockers with it
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These were definitely tapered threads in it, so somebody else had gotten to it before me. I got it drilled out till I could see threads in part of the brass, and then used a punch to peel it out. It was so corroded that there wasn't hardly any threads left to it, so I will have to use LOTS of Teflon to seal it up.

The engine I had was the 5.7L 315HP ski engine. Not sure about the cam shaft and higher ratio rockers. Maybe call CRANE and see what they say about it.
 
sorry, i forgot to mention, the tap is to re-tap the older bell housings from the back side(transom side) to take the new style shift cable that threads in from the drive side. I run the tap thru to clean out the threads in all of them
 
spareparts said:
sorry, i forgot to mention, the tap is to re-tap the older bell housings from the back side(transom side) to take the new style shift cable that threads in from the drive side. I run the tap thru to clean out the threads in all of them
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Yep, I read it in the service manual that the pre-alphas threaded in from the back. I now remember why I hated working on I/O's. I was trying to get the gimbal bearing out after fixing the bellhousings, and kept hitting my head on the swim platform. Not to mention the fun of getting down into the bilge and get the raw water pumps out to change the impellers. I couldn't imagine SEARAY fitting twin 454's into this boat and expecting somebody to work on it without pulling the engines out, but in 90 they offered twin 454's in this same boat that in 96 came with twin 135HP 4 cylinders.
 
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