Hello all, here is a bit of back story about the trouble I have had with my local marina service and a question about what to do next. This is long but the history to the problem is important to the current state of it and I could really use some help. Thank you.
I have a 1988 Wellcraft Classic 190 with a 165hp inline 6 cyc Mercruiser and Gen one Alpha one out drive. At the beginning of the season, I found my impeller pump shot, one of my wife's friend's father showed me how to replace it, since then that works fine. So I put it in the water and find that when I put it in gear it dies. The mechanic at the service department of the marina where I have purchased a season launch pass come over and said that the interrupt switch was engaging when putting it into gear and the shift cable needed to be replaced.
I asked how much to fix it and he told me "no more than $300". So I said fix it. He called me mid week and said that it was replaced but he found fishing line had destroyed one of the shaft seals and needed to be replaced, $135. I said ok fix that too then. A day later he called and said it was "ready for the water". So I showed up expecting to pay around $435 for the repair + tax on parts etc. The bill was $616....after much debate it was decided that the mechanic made a mistake and claimed 4 hours of labor when it should have been 3. I pressed on that the bill that is now $515 is not the "less than 300" plus $135 that I was quoted. The mechanic then called me a liar and said that he never said less than $300. I got the marina owner involved and after some more debate he said that there is no way that is what the mechanic quoted me but since there were no actual written quote that I was provided with for the work he would agree to take the bill down to $450. I paid it, thanked him and said that I would just ask for a written quote from now on.
So I launch the boat and things seem fine. I am in forward most of the afternoon but when I go to dock at a small pier to get some food, I find that it is almost impossible to get into neutral and to find that I have to go past neutral into forward and fuss with it a lot to get into neutral, when it does pop out of forward or reverse it is a very rough shift and I can hear the gears slamming out of gear hard. The service is closed for the night and the owner gone home, so I once again left the boat at the marina for the night.
Called the next morning and explained that something wasn't right, and described the problem. The owner is noticeably not happy to speak with me about it and kind of angeraly says that it is normal that the cable to needs to be adjusted once in the water. I thought to myself, if this is normal, why was it not tested in the water before it was released back to the owner? But I kept my tongue and asked when it would be ready, I was told Monday, the service department is closed on the weekends...Which is odd because when I had the original problem and was quoted the less than $300 to fix it by the mechanic..was on a Saturday....Fine, whatever.
Monday comes (yesterday) sure enough the mechanic calls, all fixed, ready for the water. I asked what he had to do and he said "adjust the cable, adjust the interrupt switch and bring up the idle". Adjusting the idle speed seemed odd as it was fine the last two seasons I owned it but, he is the mechanic, not me. I thanked him and hang up.
That night I drop it in the water (after work and hence after service is closed) and start it, it is idleing at 1200 rpm! I put it in reverse, SLAM!, back out of the dock way to fast but it is as slow and I can go! Pop into neutral, I go into forward, SLAM! I was creating a small wake in a no wake zone and passing slipped boats waaay to fast but it was as slow as I could go.... Get out of the no wake zone and for the life of me I can't understand why he turned the idle up so fast, it is causing it to jam really hard into gear. I pop the engine cover off and turn the idle screw back down to a about 1000. Shifts into gear much much nicer, like it always has before all of this started. The problem is that now when giving gas from idle to go forward if I don't slowly ease it on feathering it, the engine dies. It never did this before, this explains why he had the idle cranked up but that is a ridiculous fix from a mechanic at a marina.
Next the interrupt switch seems like it is engaging for a long time, it really seems like the engine is going to die and catches at the last second when shifting gears. You can very eaisly notice the engine stop running when you shift gears and it seems like if it was a fraction long the engine would not recover. Maybe this is how it is supposed to work but previous seasons I never even knew the switch existed and don't remember even noticing the engine did anything at all when I shifted out of gear. Finally, it still doesn't go into neutral right. It is better than it was but not like it was before this all started.
I use to be able to just flick the shifter back until it clicked and it was straight up and down and I was in neutral every time. Not I have to pull it back to up and down with some force and then I have pull back hard (without the handle button pushed in, not the button that disengages the drive but the one on the handle that allows you to shift it out of neutral), I have to not engage that button so I don't go into reverse and pull back hard against the reverse position stopper until I hear the engine change tone and then I know I am in neutral If I just flick past where it "clicks" to straight up and down and that is it, half the time I am still in gear even though the shifter is in the neutral position. This makes docking....interesting, not to mention if I try to go from forward to reverse and give it some gas to stop myself when docking, it stands about a 50/50 chance of killing the engine unless I put it back to idling at 1200 RPM like the mechanic had it but that cause it to shift very harshly as you can imagine and the idle speed is way to fast for a no wake zone were you have to weave through boats.
So....at this point, the wife and I decided we could complain again to the service department but they only have one mechanic and he doesn't seem to know what he is doing and has just dumb fixes for things, the owner is also not very happy with us by now so we have a fear that they are going to just sabotage to boat or something to charge us more money if we bring it back and complain again, we are at the point where we are just done with them.
I think the issue with turning the idle down to something respectable and then it dieing when given gas at more than a sipping pace is related to the carb. Is that correct? I don't understand why it is doing it becaues it never did it last season (we paid the marina to winterize it as well last season) but regardless, it is doing it now. Any idea's on what I could do to get the shifter to reliably pop into neutral like it should? Is this a normal experience with marina service departments?
We are about out of money for the time being so another service department is kind of out of the question. Please help!
I have a 1988 Wellcraft Classic 190 with a 165hp inline 6 cyc Mercruiser and Gen one Alpha one out drive. At the beginning of the season, I found my impeller pump shot, one of my wife's friend's father showed me how to replace it, since then that works fine. So I put it in the water and find that when I put it in gear it dies. The mechanic at the service department of the marina where I have purchased a season launch pass come over and said that the interrupt switch was engaging when putting it into gear and the shift cable needed to be replaced.
I asked how much to fix it and he told me "no more than $300". So I said fix it. He called me mid week and said that it was replaced but he found fishing line had destroyed one of the shaft seals and needed to be replaced, $135. I said ok fix that too then. A day later he called and said it was "ready for the water". So I showed up expecting to pay around $435 for the repair + tax on parts etc. The bill was $616....after much debate it was decided that the mechanic made a mistake and claimed 4 hours of labor when it should have been 3. I pressed on that the bill that is now $515 is not the "less than 300" plus $135 that I was quoted. The mechanic then called me a liar and said that he never said less than $300. I got the marina owner involved and after some more debate he said that there is no way that is what the mechanic quoted me but since there were no actual written quote that I was provided with for the work he would agree to take the bill down to $450. I paid it, thanked him and said that I would just ask for a written quote from now on.
So I launch the boat and things seem fine. I am in forward most of the afternoon but when I go to dock at a small pier to get some food, I find that it is almost impossible to get into neutral and to find that I have to go past neutral into forward and fuss with it a lot to get into neutral, when it does pop out of forward or reverse it is a very rough shift and I can hear the gears slamming out of gear hard. The service is closed for the night and the owner gone home, so I once again left the boat at the marina for the night.
Called the next morning and explained that something wasn't right, and described the problem. The owner is noticeably not happy to speak with me about it and kind of angeraly says that it is normal that the cable to needs to be adjusted once in the water. I thought to myself, if this is normal, why was it not tested in the water before it was released back to the owner? But I kept my tongue and asked when it would be ready, I was told Monday, the service department is closed on the weekends...Which is odd because when I had the original problem and was quoted the less than $300 to fix it by the mechanic..was on a Saturday....Fine, whatever.
Monday comes (yesterday) sure enough the mechanic calls, all fixed, ready for the water. I asked what he had to do and he said "adjust the cable, adjust the interrupt switch and bring up the idle". Adjusting the idle speed seemed odd as it was fine the last two seasons I owned it but, he is the mechanic, not me. I thanked him and hang up.
That night I drop it in the water (after work and hence after service is closed) and start it, it is idleing at 1200 rpm! I put it in reverse, SLAM!, back out of the dock way to fast but it is as slow and I can go! Pop into neutral, I go into forward, SLAM! I was creating a small wake in a no wake zone and passing slipped boats waaay to fast but it was as slow as I could go.... Get out of the no wake zone and for the life of me I can't understand why he turned the idle up so fast, it is causing it to jam really hard into gear. I pop the engine cover off and turn the idle screw back down to a about 1000. Shifts into gear much much nicer, like it always has before all of this started. The problem is that now when giving gas from idle to go forward if I don't slowly ease it on feathering it, the engine dies. It never did this before, this explains why he had the idle cranked up but that is a ridiculous fix from a mechanic at a marina.
Next the interrupt switch seems like it is engaging for a long time, it really seems like the engine is going to die and catches at the last second when shifting gears. You can very eaisly notice the engine stop running when you shift gears and it seems like if it was a fraction long the engine would not recover. Maybe this is how it is supposed to work but previous seasons I never even knew the switch existed and don't remember even noticing the engine did anything at all when I shifted out of gear. Finally, it still doesn't go into neutral right. It is better than it was but not like it was before this all started.
I use to be able to just flick the shifter back until it clicked and it was straight up and down and I was in neutral every time. Not I have to pull it back to up and down with some force and then I have pull back hard (without the handle button pushed in, not the button that disengages the drive but the one on the handle that allows you to shift it out of neutral), I have to not engage that button so I don't go into reverse and pull back hard against the reverse position stopper until I hear the engine change tone and then I know I am in neutral If I just flick past where it "clicks" to straight up and down and that is it, half the time I am still in gear even though the shifter is in the neutral position. This makes docking....interesting, not to mention if I try to go from forward to reverse and give it some gas to stop myself when docking, it stands about a 50/50 chance of killing the engine unless I put it back to idling at 1200 RPM like the mechanic had it but that cause it to shift very harshly as you can imagine and the idle speed is way to fast for a no wake zone were you have to weave through boats.
So....at this point, the wife and I decided we could complain again to the service department but they only have one mechanic and he doesn't seem to know what he is doing and has just dumb fixes for things, the owner is also not very happy with us by now so we have a fear that they are going to just sabotage to boat or something to charge us more money if we bring it back and complain again, we are at the point where we are just done with them.
I think the issue with turning the idle down to something respectable and then it dieing when given gas at more than a sipping pace is related to the carb. Is that correct? I don't understand why it is doing it becaues it never did it last season (we paid the marina to winterize it as well last season) but regardless, it is doing it now. Any idea's on what I could do to get the shifter to reliably pop into neutral like it should? Is this a normal experience with marina service departments?
We are about out of money for the time being so another service department is kind of out of the question. Please help!
