What is a ‘Pre-Alpha’ drive?

[achris]

What is a ‘Pre-Alpha’ drive?

We see this all the time…. I have a ‘pre-Alpha’ drive, can you tell me…..??? What parts do I need for my ‘Pre-Alpha’?

And so on….

Before anyone can answer those questions, we need to know, exactly WHICH ‘Pre-Alpha’ drive do you have?

Mercury never produced a drive called ‘pre-alpha’… It’s a mis-quote used by another website. What they usually mean is a Mercruiser-1 drive, or MC-1… But not always.

Here are the list of drives produced by Mercury, and the years and serial number groupings (there can be a small amount of overlap depending on the drive ratio).. Hopefully this list will alleviate the need for anyone to refer to a drive as a ‘pre-alpha’ again…



This is only a list of the ‘Alpha style’ drives, and does not include drives like the E (Electric) or H(Hydraulic), or the II drives, nor the TR/TR-S and Bravo series, or any of the 'Super-SpeedMaster' drives. And I have omitted the drives used with the Renault engines, the ‘O’ series. In total, Mercury produced no less than 15 different drives ‘before the Alpha One’ or, ‘Pre-Alpha’….

And you will see from this list that there is no drive called ‘Pre-Alpha’.

Chris………….

 

[Scott Danforth]

Needs to be a sticky

 

[achris]

Needs to be a sticky

If enough people agree, I'll 'make it so'....

Chris......

 

[GA_Boater]

 

[achris]

 

[jbuote]

Well I may be relatively new, and learning fast, but I'll vote to have that as a sticky!
Going to use what I have (outboards) for a while longer in my smaller local lakes but the goal is to eventually get out in the harbors/bays/oceans..

Never know if I'm going to need that info later on, so if it's a sticky, I'll already know where to look instead of searching for it again when the time comes!!

Would be good info to get at easily for those shopping for boats too..
Maybe they'll be able to tell what they're looking at (if they reference it when shopping anyway...LOL)

 

[achris]

It's now in the stickies.... In "Mercruiser Information", under Don's excellent 'Mercruiser Alpha ID and History'....

Chris.........

 

[GA_Boater]

Did you use the approved stickie tack? LOL

It grates my nerves to see Pre-Alpha. Thanks for the ID chart.

 

[achris]

Did you use the approved stickie tack? LOL

As it turns out, apparently I did. :lol:

It grates my nerves to see Pre-Alpha. Thanks for the ID chart.

You and me both! Now we have something to point them at.

C.

 

[Maclin]

Almost like it was a pre-sticky.

 

[jkanclark]

With the help of this sticky post, I'm now entirely certain I have an MC-1 sterndrive unit. Now, if only I could locate the service manual. Never can seem to find that!