First Trip of The Season. Maintenance is a Virtue !!!!!

[kenmyfam]

Just wanted to share something I believe in. Boat and motor winterised as per recommended procedure, woke it up a few weeks ago. Did the impeller, changed out plugs, checked compression, checked thermostats, cleaned and rebuilt carbs. Did a decarb. Worked great on the muffs. Took her out for the first spin of the season this afternoon and first real test. Weather was cool but really nice.
Fired up first spin, smoked a little as usual, put putted out the mile to the main lake (Lake St Clair) from the Ruscom river, got to the first buoy and opened her up. Sweet sounding motor and off we went. Ran like a dream all afternoon.
Bottom Line to this is that I have never had any major issues with this motor and have never missed a regular maintenance procedure and have always winterised and summerised it as per recommendations. The only actual issue i had was when the fuel pump started to fail last summer on vacation. Motor just purrs along.
Coincidence ?? am I just lucky ??? or do you think the time and effort put in pays off in the long run ???

 

[tx1961whaler]

Re: First Trip of The Season. Maintenance is a Virtue !!!!!

It pays off, if only for the fact that you are actually taking off the cowl and carefully looking at the motor, and starting it up before you take it to the ramp. You'd be surprised at how many don't ever take off the cowl to even inspect the motor. You also fix things when they go wrong, and don't run it on an iffy water pump, leaky lower end, 3 year old gas, or leaned out carb. Since I don't take mine out most every day like I did when I lived in Fla, the motor better run perfect the night before in the driveway, or it doesn't go out. That includes the kicker.

 

[dingbat]

Re: First Trip of The Season. Maintenance is a Virtue !!!!!

You can't argue with maintenance is key but that fact that you've not had a problem, yet, has more to do with the number of hours you put on the motor than your maintenance schedule. If you put enough hours on a motor things are going to happen maintenance or not. I have never, knock on wood, had a maintenance preventable failure.

FWIW: I don?t believe in hour based maintenance schedules. I change water pumps when my water pressure gets low. I change lower unit oil when the oil is dirty or contaminated. I change plugs when they are worn and need replaced. I even installed a vacuum gauge on my Racor so I?m only replace fuel filters on an as-needed basis.

If I followed an hour based schedule, I?d be pulling the boat right now to do my 100 hour service even though its only been in use forr 42 days.

 

[Fl_Richard]

Re: First Trip of The Season. Maintenance is a Virtue !!!!!

For me maintenence is a continuous part of having a boat. If my car breaks down I can thumb a ride, if my boat breaks down I'm 35 miles out and I'm bobbing like a cork.

With that said there is a certain amount of security that comes with knowing how your engine works and that the basic stuff has been taken care of.

However, the things that generally render an engine dead are rarely maintenence items (impeller excepted) You can't maintain the VRO pump, power pack or optical sensor etc. It's my experience that these are the parts that die at the worst possible times and frankly without etra parts there is nothing that can be done about it.

I've never been stranded for lower unit oil, spark plugs or even a pulgged carburator (mine has six). I have been almost stranded
because of a power pack. Glad I've got twins

So maintenence is a good thing, it gives piece of mind and it is required to keep any motor in good operating condition. Plus while doing the maintence you will often find other problems you'd never find if not doing maintenence. Fixing these problems along with maintence will reduce your chances of being stranded but by no means will doing good maintnece by the book eliminate the possibility of becoming stranded.

An old mechanic once told me the best thing for my engines is to run them - often! So following his advice... - sorry honey gotta go maintain the boat!

I'd say your lucky!!