So, day 2 of our week long vacation at the cottage - beautiful lake, perfect weather, family and my bayliner 175. Going for our first slow cruise around the lake after a day of wakeboading and tubing....Bang! I had lost track of where I was while navigating a narrow channel between a large mini Island and the shore....I had done the unthinkable and hit a rock...hard. I have been through this channel hundreds of times, but usually ad planing speed...this time I was loaded with 5 people and going very slow and off centre.
I immediately smelled Oil...however the engine was still running fine, never missed a beat, but I knew it was bad. limped back tot he dock about 200 meters away, and when I reached down I felt what I expected - I had punch a quarter size hole in the leading edge of the lower gear case I stuck my finger in and could feel the gears. Damn, I had wrecked the boat and my vacation. Oddly the prop was almost undamaged, skeg was ok too.
After wringing my hands and remembering reading stories here about how guys fixed engine cracked blocks with JB Weld, I decided to give it a go. I drove the 40 minutes to the local canadian tire and picked up a tube of the JB Weld Steel Stick. I pulled the boat, sanded the area around the hole down to bare metal, picked out the metal shards that were still attached and then applied a patch of JB Weld overlapping the edge of this almost perfect circle hole by about 1/3 of an inch.
I actually didn't think it would work - I told my wife and kids not to expect much. So I left it overnight. The next morning it was hard, I banged it with a hammer and it was really hard. So I filled the drive up with fresh oil and put it back in the water. I had this fear of dumping another liter of gear oil into the the pristine lake,but I had to give it a try. So I drove the boat around the lake for about 3 minutes, and checked the patch 3 times. Then I gave it a good kick up to WOT and checked again...all good. All in all I tested it for about 30 minutes before pulling it out to have a close look.
To my absolute surprise...it was not losing a drop. To sum up - we spent the next 5 days tubing, boarding and cruising, burned 2 full tanks of gas and the patch did not leak a drop. Boat rand and shifted 100%.
I am still so surprised this worked, That JB Weld stuff is amazing...I think I will write them an email to tell them this story.
I do realize that this is probably not any sort of permanent solution. I would not want to be out on a big lake with my family with this patch job, the cottage lake is small (3X5 km) and there are always people we know around so we would never be stranded for long.
I am now researching my options to repair this permanently. Can these things be welded? Should I find a used case and transfer the Guts (from what I read this is a big job) or bite the bullet and buy an SEI replacement. (Will the SEI lower bolt onto a Merc Upper?) Suggestions welcome.
D In Mtl
I immediately smelled Oil...however the engine was still running fine, never missed a beat, but I knew it was bad. limped back tot he dock about 200 meters away, and when I reached down I felt what I expected - I had punch a quarter size hole in the leading edge of the lower gear case I stuck my finger in and could feel the gears. Damn, I had wrecked the boat and my vacation. Oddly the prop was almost undamaged, skeg was ok too.
After wringing my hands and remembering reading stories here about how guys fixed engine cracked blocks with JB Weld, I decided to give it a go. I drove the 40 minutes to the local canadian tire and picked up a tube of the JB Weld Steel Stick. I pulled the boat, sanded the area around the hole down to bare metal, picked out the metal shards that were still attached and then applied a patch of JB Weld overlapping the edge of this almost perfect circle hole by about 1/3 of an inch.
I actually didn't think it would work - I told my wife and kids not to expect much. So I left it overnight. The next morning it was hard, I banged it with a hammer and it was really hard. So I filled the drive up with fresh oil and put it back in the water. I had this fear of dumping another liter of gear oil into the the pristine lake,but I had to give it a try. So I drove the boat around the lake for about 3 minutes, and checked the patch 3 times. Then I gave it a good kick up to WOT and checked again...all good. All in all I tested it for about 30 minutes before pulling it out to have a close look.
To my absolute surprise...it was not losing a drop. To sum up - we spent the next 5 days tubing, boarding and cruising, burned 2 full tanks of gas and the patch did not leak a drop. Boat rand and shifted 100%.
I am still so surprised this worked, That JB Weld stuff is amazing...I think I will write them an email to tell them this story.
I do realize that this is probably not any sort of permanent solution. I would not want to be out on a big lake with my family with this patch job, the cottage lake is small (3X5 km) and there are always people we know around so we would never be stranded for long.
I am now researching my options to repair this permanently. Can these things be welded? Should I find a used case and transfer the Guts (from what I read this is a big job) or bite the bullet and buy an SEI replacement. (Will the SEI lower bolt onto a Merc Upper?) Suggestions welcome.
D In Mtl