86 Sea Ray Restoration [Splashed Oct 2017]

[Goldie627]

Hi everybody, i will post an update video before thanksgiving. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday with family and friends.

I put my outdrive in the shop to have it pressure tested and the oil was saturated with water so I'm going to have to do seals. Was no need to pressure test.

So far will need upper seal kit, lower seal kit, water pump kit and base, parts and labor 1000.00. Ouch!

gimbal bearing seems ok, belows seem ok, most likely will do new shift cable, but that's still up for debate....

I'm going to try to get atlast one more estimate before authorizing work.

What do you guys think of that price?

 

[SDSeville]

Hi everybody, i will post an update video before thanksgiving. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday with family and friends.

I put my outdrive in the shop to have it pressure tested and the oil was saturated with water so I'm going to have to do seals. Was no need to pressure test.

So far will need upper seal kit, lower seal kit, water pump kit and base, parts and labor 1000.00. Ouch!

gimbal bearing seems ok, belows seem ok, most likely will do new shift cable, but that's still up for debate....

I'm going to try to get atlast one more estimate before authorizing work.

What do you guys think of that price?

Sounds steep. A few hundred more and you have a brand new SEI drive. You have done such a great job with the boat, why not buy the parts and jump on the Merc IO & Outdrive section here?

 

[Suprathepeg]

If its anything like an outboard seal kit. You can probably do it yourself for less than $100 in parts.

 

[Rick Stephens]

It's not really anything like an outboard..... however, there is not all that much reason not to do it yourself, except sometimes the special tools can cost more than the labor, and then you get up to the price of an SEI outdrive - and no warranty like you get with a new outdrive.

That said, pressure test your outdrive and find out what is leaking. Build a pressure tester, test your unit. THEN post in the Mercruiser IO forum and decide whether you want to fix it yourself.

I had the same kind of experience with a local, well sort of local since the closest shop is 80 miles away. I asked what it would cost in LABOR to reseal just the upper, if I handed them just the upper. Quote was $450 labor and up. Baloney. With the right tools, couple hour job at worst. Makes it a $225 hour shop rate. I bought a couple merc special tools and did myself. Not that hard. Definitely needs special care and attention though. Details are everything with gear sets.

 

[tpenfield]

You could probably do the seals for $150 in tools and maybe another $150 in parts and materials. . . . so about 30% of the price quoted. Not that the price is bad, but you are paying a lot for the labor & knowledge.

 

[Mark72233]

What special Merc tools or equivalent would Goldie need for either top or bottom end. I am going to be in his shoes times 2 in just a few weeks when it's time to tear down and rebuild 2 out drives for my twin Merc 165s. I have 4 out drives I and going to try and build 2 good ones from. Goldie I apologize for hijacking your thread for a few

 

[saginawbayboater]

Goldie I commend you on an awesome resto! :thumb: Your craftsmanship is top notch!:eagerness: Thank you for taking the time and effort to video everything they are awesome even with an occasional caterpillar lurking! :laugh::laugh:ound:ound:

 

[Goldie627]

Thank you so much everyone! I'll be uploading a new video soon on the project progress. I must say at this point the SEI out drive looks very attractive. Three year warranty sounds awesomely good too.

Some of you guys have me thinking about resealing the drive myself. I think I could do it but what worries me most is not having any marine background. More specifically being able to evaluate the hard parts that may be bad along the way while replacing the seals.

The SEI is just buy it and slap it on. Well, almost... I believe it comes with the lower and upper separated and there is a few extra parts I'll need. I'm going to call them this week to find out more about it.

I am so undecided!!! On one hand I wanna buy the SEI, on the other hand it would be nice to reseal the outdrive myself, on the other hand I would save a bundle doing it myself, on the other hand myself means no three year warranty, on the other hand, i'm intimidated by purchasing a bunch of specialty tools, on the other hand oh crap..... this is a lot of hands... lets vote on it!!!!

All in favor of SEI ?
All in favor of DIY ?

 

[tpenfield]

It really depends what you are comfortable with. If you have good experience working on cars, and mechanical stuff in general, then you could probably go the DIY route.

 

[Suprathepeg]

If you are going to do seals on the drive just do them all. Open up the torpedo and verify that the gears and bearing are in good shape, if it is then just a gasket set and away you go. If gears and or bearings are cooked, I would consider the SEI option.

 

[Mark72233]

Goldie I am with you on all counts. If I had disposable cash I would just go out and buy 2 of the SEI drives. I have researched them a little and although there are opposing views they seem like well made and backed by that 3 year warranty. But I don't have $3000 and I do have 4 old outdrives so I am going to take the route of DIY. I am with you on the fact is I am no expert and have very little true experience with working on outdrives so looking at used parts and determining if it is usable or not is the problem. The obvious things like melted gears and bearings that fall apart but I am sure there are times when a shaft, gear or bearing may look fine but may have an issue that you wont know until after you rebuild the outdrive and put it back into service only to have it fail after a lot of work and a few hundred $$$$ but that is the DIY game in a nut shell.

 

[Woodonglass]

Do you have any Mechanically minded friends?? Relatives! Neighbors?? I HATE mechanical stuff but I DO have a B.I.L. that is extremely good at it and he helps me out with that stuff so I usually tackle it myself. But if he weren't in the picture, I'd prolly have to pay for it!!!!

 

[Goldie627]

 

[Goldie627]

So far my "DIY" thoughts...
Regarding the outdrive resealing, Mark has explained it exactly. Im confident that I could do the seals but my trepidation is rooted in the unknown. Like Mark said lacking the marine expertise to identify non obvious problems. Not to mention trying to make a list of the specialty tools needed. Also, I could not find any instructions or step by step guides for the seals. I could see various seals when I was studying the mercruiser sterndrive manual but its all mixed in with other info. I hope im not over complicating or overthinking this, Im just trying to make a sound decision based on the unforgiving reality that the reseal may not have a happy ending. But like Scott said ,even if i do it twice its still less than the shop would charge.

So far my "take it to a Shop" thoughts...
Honestly, I haven't found a shop that I really fully trust. Im looking for honesty, integrity and price. For instance, I went to a shop looking for a coupler, they gave me a price of 300.00 i got the exact same coupler off ebay for 150.00. I understand these guys have families and its a business but geez. I would have paid an extra 20 or even 30 to support the local shop but double?? This was a real turn off. The other issue was say I spend anywhere from 700 to 1000 to reseal the upper, lower, and waterpump... then out of the blue... oh, your gonna need a bearing too, or oh your gonna also need a gear too.... either one or both of these scenarios will bring me to the price point of the SEI

So far my "SEI" thoughts...
So far from my internet research the SEI has been overwhelmingly welcomed and accepted. There is a small percentage of diehard merc loyalist out there that don't really say anything bad about the SEI but rather they just prefer the Alpha One outdrive. The attractive points for me are the no fault three year warranty, and the price. I found no evidence of inferior workmanship or quality of parts when comparing the SEI to the Alpha One. However, one common notable downside to the SEI was that the paint does or did not last as along as expected.

At this point im 90 percent sure I'll be ordering a SEI. However my current problem is selecting the correct outdrive. For my Alpha one replacement there are seven different choices on SEI's web page. I called SEI and they said they could tell me the correct outdrive if i had the engine serial number. Unfortunately i wasn't near the boat at the time. But, this is what i dont understand, if the outdrives are matched by gear ratios's then the engine serial number isnt a good guess? its not absoute right? because what if somebody somewhere along the line since 1986 changed the stock gearing??

So with that being said im going to have to learn how to count teeth!

I will be so glad when im past this part of the restoration, this almost makes me want to go back to grinding fiberglass!

 

[Goldie627]

I found this odd..

my mercruiser drive unit serial no is 0B411353, google returns nothing for this stanza

my mercury engine serial number is B430075, google returns nothing for this stanza


​

 

[tpenfield]

Not sure if Google will return anything for a specific serial number. unless it shows up in a post or article, like this one

If you go to any of the mercruiser parts sites, it should be 'captured' within a range. I get "140 GM 181 I/L4 1982-1986" on the mercruiser parts site.

 

[Rick Stephens]

Beautiful work going on. I am amazed. It takes a lot to do 1708 over lumps bumps and corners.

Your 3.0L engine will take the SE106 1.94:1 drive. How I know - I bought one last year for my '90 3.0L boat. Followed their install and break-in instructions exactly. It is true, any place you touch the paint too hard will chip it. My drive already looks like it is several years old. The one downside that I can find. Jason, their customer support guy answers his cell phone in the middle of weekends and while on trips and even at the dinner table. That's the impression I got when I had something come up and called him. What came up was the shift spool was adjusted a bit tight inside which caused the brass intermediate shaft shoe to be canted just enough to make it impossible to slide into the upper shift shaft when installing the drive. Instead of sliding into place, the upper shaft would twist and lock up. I called Jason and he gave me instructions to either put a wrench on it as I installed, which would resolve the problem, or send it back and he would replace the lower altogether. I followed his instructions and had no issue.

On seals, well, I would absolutely recommend that you build a simple pressure tester and find out what is leaking before making any decision on spending real money and or effort to reseal your outdrive. It may be just the seal under the water pump, or the output seal for the upper, both of which just take a few minutes and screwdrivers to remove. Or the shift shaft seal, which is just as simple and easy. Until you have a way to pressure test and determine the problem, you are at the mercy of guessing whether it needs a shop or special tools.

Keep on keeping on, my friend. Your boat is looking great.

RIck

 

[saginawbayboater]

Rick hit the nail on the head start at the beginning with a pressure test. Don't take anything for granted. You may have one bad seal like someones fishing line got wrapped around the prop and went up in the seals. Anybody can say you need a bla bla bla.....
I go to the biggest library in my county and they have all kinds of manuals and I look for the OEM manual first . If they have that your golden, no pun intended.

So my vote is to do it yourself.

 

[JaCrispy]

No matter what you need an alignment tool to reinstall the drive.

I did a majority of the seals in my drive/gimbal last winter. But not the input and output shaft seals. The input you need a special spanner, which I need. I didn't look up the output (prop shaft) as mine isn't leaking. If you can pin point the leak(s) you can save a TON of money buying seals a la carte. Can't tell you how many times I bought a "Kit" only to find it was missing pieces I needed.

 

[Suprathepeg]

Sure do a pressure test, but at the end of the day if you're going to change one seal then change them all. If the drive is off the boat then there is no time like the present. Also do a visual inspection of the bearings and gears, When the boat finally hits the water the last thing you want is for the out drive to do south on you in the middle of the season.