Time on the water is not deducted from your life expectancy. 
Hit it!
Hit it!
No one ever said boats are cheap
- Thread starter Donald
- Start date
It seems to me you gotta do boat maintenance yourself if you're of average means.
Trusting people and wiring them stacks of money......I'd be dead in 6 months.
Trusting people and wiring them stacks of money......I'd be dead in 6 months.
There are a lot of systems on boats, from engine and drive to fresh water and toilet, to electronics to batteries, DC power and shore power, AC and refrig to canvas.
If I will be doing any work on the outdrive I will need to buy an outdrive jack. I might be able to deal with an Merc Alpha One by myself but no way for a VP DuoProp.
when you say metal shavings, do you mean just a fuzz of very small particles or small chunks? Big difference. One thing to check is the shift cable adjustment, a sticky cable will cause delayed engagement and accelerates wear. One of the things I check at the start of each season is that the shift cable moves freely in both directions, it's easy to check on the OMC Cobra when the drive is off. On a dog clutch outdrive like an Alpha or Cobra stiff or sticky shift cables cause it to clunk into gear (grriiinnnddd--CLUNK) instead of solidly dropping into gear (THUNK) on the Volvo (cone clutch) you won't hear anything amiss but will feel the delayed engagement like an auto trans low on fluid.
My 24' Mercruiser sold for $76 on Ebay. I had donated it to charity but that is the amount the charity got.Boats aren't cheap? I saw a 20 something foot Bayliner for sale in a guy's yard for $900. Seems super cheap to me!
The upper housing for a VP DuoProp is roughly $4000.
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Storing in the water allows one to use shore power for a battery charger and run the A/C to keep the RH% down. But there are certainly drawbacks.
I maintain my simple Merc 3.0 and Merc alpha drive. I change the oil, oil filter, h20/fuel filter, and outdrive fluid every year. Fingers crossed, it's been reliable! I keep the battery on a tender at all times. I run cheap aluminum props and if I tore one up, I'd be out less than $100. I do have a nice 4 blade stainless but I don't run it often as I'm always worried about it!
My dads drag boat on the other hand... It cost big money to go 7.70's in the 1/4 mile @ 160+ mph...
Both my old and new boat have 5.7 engines although the new boat has slightly more HP. But one had a Merc Alpha One and the current one a VP DuoProp. The VP DuoProp is several times the cost of the Merc Alpha One.
So given the missing teeth in the forward gear I think it would have been evident during a sea trial. We ran at low speed past no wake zone then around 30 MPH. Neither I nor the guy who did the survey detected any odd sounds. Maybe it was somehow damaged after the sea trial?
I have owned a Hondo Sprint over the years sold it in 2004 . Dads boat is my kind of boat. The picture put a huge smile on my face !!!
I talked to a guy at a place that rebuilds outdrives. Very knowledgeable. He said if the damaged gear was in the upper housing then someone slammed it into gear without letting the engine get back to idle.
He also said that the gear teeth probably broke off and then the metal got ground up into tiny pieces. And these metal pieces were spread between the upper and lower housings. So the lower housing needs to be taken apart and thoroughly cleaned. The shop wants to flush the lower outdrive, not take it apart.
The place that rebuilds them said I should replace both upper and lower sections.
He also said that the gear teeth probably broke off and then the metal got ground up into tiny pieces. And these metal pieces were spread between the upper and lower housings. So the lower housing needs to be taken apart and thoroughly cleaned. The shop wants to flush the lower outdrive, not take it apart.
The place that rebuilds them said I should replace both upper and lower sections.
My 2 stroke 25hp Mercury on a 16ft jon boat is all the boat I'm prepared to afford maintenance on.. haha
One cannot take $$ with you when you die so minds well spend $$ on your boat.
Donald, what kind of boat is this?
Wish I could give more than one on the '..can't take it with you..' comment.
Wish I could give more than one
on the '..can't take it with you..' comment.
