Ok, heres my long story. I bought my first boat last year at the beginning of summer. Its a 1988 Bluewater cuddy cabin with the Mercruiser 470 engine. I live in Washington state in the Puget sound region. The guy I bought it from used it to weekend cruise the San Juan Islands, and it had been primarily used in salt water. I took it for a test spin when he was returning from one these weekend trips. We ended up buying the boat and used it for a week long boat camping trip and cruised weekends and evening trips for the rest of the summer. We never had any problems with the motor and it always fired right up with the first turn of the key. It had plenty of power and we usually cruised at 15 to 17 knots @ 3K RPM. 2 issues that I was aware of were; hard to shift in and out of gear (cable and gimbal) and a small coolant leak (I heard this was normal for the 470). At the end of the season I took it into my local marine shop (referred by someone who knows the owner) to have it winterized and check the mechanical systems out while I had it in the shop. I told them specifically that I wanted it winterized and that I cruise the San Juans with my wife and small son and that I wanted them to check out the engine and outdrive to make sure everything was mechanically sound and ready to go. The boat was dropped off at their shop in October of last year. After a few weeks they came back with their diagnosis.
1. Parts for the sticky shifter, cables, bellows, gaskets, gimbal bearing, etc.
2. Speedi-sleeve and gaskets, etc. to fix the coolant leak
3. New problem discovered; they said they found a hole in the exhaust manifold that was leaking water and it needed to be replaced. So, new exhaust manifold, elbow, other associated parts and gaskets. The head goes out to a machine shop for a valve job.
They re-assemble everything, winterize it, and call me to tell me everything is fixed and its running great. By now its December, theyve had my boat for 2 months. I pay the $3700 bill and put the boat into winter storage. Fast forward to the end of this June.
Summer is here and its time to go boating once again. I plan a week long San Juan boat camping trip with my family over the 4th of July week. (it also happens to be our 5 year wedding anniversary) I pull the boat out of storage, check all the fluids and battery, hook up the hose to the outdrive and prepare to start it up. She turns over just fine, but doesnt fire. Check the carb, she has gas. Check the spark, no spark. I have my wife turn it over a few times while Im checking for spark and on her third try it finally fires. Hmm, thats weird, now it has spark. Engine finally starts and it looks like it burns/blows out the storage seal from the cylinders. Ok, she runs. I shut it down and the next day is the shake-down cruise to check her out before the vacation. Next day we launch at the public boat launch on the bay and take her across the channel to the dock. While trying to dock the motor doesnt seem to want to idle between shifting. The was especially fun while docking in current and wind. OK, minor detail, maybe a carb adjustment. I take it out into the bay and open it up and cruise around for a while. I cuts out twice on me, just minor little hiccups, but Im starting to get a bad feeling in my gut. That Friday morning the boat gets dropped back off at the shop for them to check out these little glitches. The adjust the carb and once again they tell me its running great. 2 days later is the start of the boating vacation. The boat is launched and were out on the water. About twenty minutes into the trip it seems that the engine is running doggy not much power and she doesnt want to get up on a plane. It goes downhill from there. Temp gauge looks fine, but oil pressure is dropping. In a matter of minutes were dead in the water. I open the engine compartment and we have acrid, burnt oil smelling smoke. I cant see any oil in the bilge or on the motor, but something is smoking and smelling bad. Fast forward again, boat is towed back to marina ($600) dropped of that day back at the marine shop. I get a call from the service rep telling me that my crank bearings are fried and the engine is toast. Duh. The mechanic is out so I cant talk to him. He wont be back until Monday. Im having a hard time believing that I can trust them to evaluate their own work and find the root cause of this failure. The real question is what caused to oil pressure to suddenly fail and eventually cause bearing failure. If its coincidental I can accept that, but it seems odd that I would have this catastrophic failure so quickly after they did their work. I probably need to have another mechanic look at it who I know can be non-biased about the work that was done and find the root cause.
1. Parts for the sticky shifter, cables, bellows, gaskets, gimbal bearing, etc.
2. Speedi-sleeve and gaskets, etc. to fix the coolant leak
3. New problem discovered; they said they found a hole in the exhaust manifold that was leaking water and it needed to be replaced. So, new exhaust manifold, elbow, other associated parts and gaskets. The head goes out to a machine shop for a valve job.
They re-assemble everything, winterize it, and call me to tell me everything is fixed and its running great. By now its December, theyve had my boat for 2 months. I pay the $3700 bill and put the boat into winter storage. Fast forward to the end of this June.
Summer is here and its time to go boating once again. I plan a week long San Juan boat camping trip with my family over the 4th of July week. (it also happens to be our 5 year wedding anniversary) I pull the boat out of storage, check all the fluids and battery, hook up the hose to the outdrive and prepare to start it up. She turns over just fine, but doesnt fire. Check the carb, she has gas. Check the spark, no spark. I have my wife turn it over a few times while Im checking for spark and on her third try it finally fires. Hmm, thats weird, now it has spark. Engine finally starts and it looks like it burns/blows out the storage seal from the cylinders. Ok, she runs. I shut it down and the next day is the shake-down cruise to check her out before the vacation. Next day we launch at the public boat launch on the bay and take her across the channel to the dock. While trying to dock the motor doesnt seem to want to idle between shifting. The was especially fun while docking in current and wind. OK, minor detail, maybe a carb adjustment. I take it out into the bay and open it up and cruise around for a while. I cuts out twice on me, just minor little hiccups, but Im starting to get a bad feeling in my gut. That Friday morning the boat gets dropped back off at the shop for them to check out these little glitches. The adjust the carb and once again they tell me its running great. 2 days later is the start of the boating vacation. The boat is launched and were out on the water. About twenty minutes into the trip it seems that the engine is running doggy not much power and she doesnt want to get up on a plane. It goes downhill from there. Temp gauge looks fine, but oil pressure is dropping. In a matter of minutes were dead in the water. I open the engine compartment and we have acrid, burnt oil smelling smoke. I cant see any oil in the bilge or on the motor, but something is smoking and smelling bad. Fast forward again, boat is towed back to marina ($600) dropped of that day back at the marine shop. I get a call from the service rep telling me that my crank bearings are fried and the engine is toast. Duh. The mechanic is out so I cant talk to him. He wont be back until Monday. Im having a hard time believing that I can trust them to evaluate their own work and find the root cause of this failure. The real question is what caused to oil pressure to suddenly fail and eventually cause bearing failure. If its coincidental I can accept that, but it seems odd that I would have this catastrophic failure so quickly after they did their work. I probably need to have another mechanic look at it who I know can be non-biased about the work that was done and find the root cause.
