Should I buy a new outboard

[lil' beaver]

I'm at my wits end with my outboards. Going into this season I had 3 140 outboards omc outboards running. Half way through our boating season I have a total of 10 hours on the water and 3 outboards that need work. The 81' 140 rude had an overheat and I needed to replace the thermostats. Of course I broke a bolt when trying to remove the housing, now I need to remove the powerhead and get the bolt extracted.

I decided to put the '88 140 johnson on to finish the season. Got it out of storage, ran good on stand. It has been sitting so I installed a water pump kit, new stats, changed lower unit oil, rebuilt carbs and we are ready to go. Go to start it up and have no spark on any cyl. I mess with it for a little then decide to take it to the shop. Two weeks later and a bunch of parts thrown at it they can't figure it out. Luckily they replace my original parts and I only have to eat the labor cost.

Ok, I will put the 80' 140 johnson on and go from there. Get it out, run it, test everything, we a good. Install it on the boat, test run it on the lake, we are good. Go to pull it out of the water and the tilt wont work. Manually trim the motor and head home with my tail between my legs. Go to put fluid in it and can't get the fill screw out to save my life. Decided to swap trim units from the 81' 140 rude and the tilt ram pin is frozen and I can't remove it. Rant over.

We have been talking about getting a new motor for quite some time now but never really wanted to spend the money. I may be just frustrated right now but I'm real close to pulling the trigger on a new motor. We are going to loose most of our boating season. At what point do you just give up, bite the bullet, and go new?

 

[minuteman62-64]

I'm just basing this on prices I've seen for used OBs and parts. Seems to me that if you've got 3 motors that either run, or give the appearance of being capable of running (i.e. not seized), you've potentially got a good chunk of the cost of a new (used?) motor. If you'd rather be boating than working on your motors, seems like a no brainer to at least investigate.

 

[Silvertip]

I am always amazed that a so called "mechanic" can't figure out why an engine (any engine) has no spark! That's just basic troubleshooting. Find a new mechanic. It appears you have three engines, parts from two of which would result in one good running engine with a bunch of spares. Again, find a responsible mechanic or swap power heads/parts as needed.

 

[lil' beaver]

I usually like to do my own work, but for sake of saving the remaining couple months on my boating season and the eternal wrath from angry 6, 12, and 14 y.o. girls that has not had any boating time this summer, I took it to a shop. Turns out I lost more time than that guy was worth.

 

[lil' beaver]

Just a side note. It is getting harder to find a mechanic that will work on these older outboards. Most local places, and they are few here inland, wont touch the old stuff. If they do, it seems that if they cant plug the thing into diagnostic software, they can't figure it out. It's a lost art at most of these shops. The old masters have moved on.

 

[dingbat]

The old masters have moved on.

Or they're dead....lol. There comes a point where you have to put 35 year old, obsolete technology to bed and move on.

 

[thomas15]

I have read this thread several times to get a full understanding of the situation. If it were me, I would get the trim on the 80 Johnson fixed and run it for the rest of the season. An overnight soak in penetrating oil maybe?

 

[oldboat1]

Not a great summer. Sounds like you might be battling salt water corrosion, but maybe not. Pretty sure the daughters would be fine, though, if you can just run the motor with the tilt/trim issues. Got to believe you can get a runner out of the three motors, given a little time.

[oops. see your post is a couple of weeks old now. Hope things are working out better.]