Damn, Mercury really nails you for replacement parts . . . Navigate carefully!

[Expidia]

On one of my last trips out last season I remember hitting a rock in a large bay that was not well marked on Lake Champlain. I knew the a path to the entrance of Burton Island was very limited, but was not paying attention to exactly where I was because I was going real slow, the GPS was reading a depth of 4 feet and had been through this same bay so many times.
I've hit rocks or stumps before and had to send the prop out to an online repair shop that charges like $28 to repair it.
I can live with paying for a prop repair.

But this time after that big clunk, there was no damage to the prop. So now at the beginning of a this season, I touched up some paint chips on the prop and when I went to put the prop back on I noticed it was binding very slightly against this black aluminum ring or collar located behind the prop. It's only held on by 2 bolts and then I noticed the top ear that the bolt goes through was cracked. When I took off both bolts I noticed the lower one was also cracked. They both fell right of the collar after I removed the bolts.

Bottom line was without those two ears intact, there was nothing holding the prop and the prop shaft into the lower unit. I pulled on the prop and the entire prop and shaft assembly pulled right out. And some accumulated water went right into the lower gear oil (that I changed at the end of the season). I was lucky to find this before splash down, because if I was in reverse the whole prop and shaft assembly would have popped right out and went to the bottom of the lake or river.

We need to be like a pilot inspecting his plane before take off. Before each launch! I'm glad I caught this damage before I got miles out on 10 mile wide and 132 mile long Lake Champlain, stopped somewhere miles from the launch, put it in reverse and I would have been screwed!

So I took the rig to my Merc authorized repair shop to order the part and said you might as well drain the water out and install the ring and refill the lower unit.

What ticked me off was the cost of this ring from Merc. They called it a carrier assembly. because the other end of the ring supports the prop shaft (hence the name carrier assembly). But $177 just for this part
12.50 for shop supplies
$7.82 Lower unit oil
$94 labor ($23 a 1/4 hour) I wonder how much a brain surgeon makes when he breaks it down to 1/4 hours
tax at $23.50
All tolled $323.

Sure I could have installed it myself and saved some money, but the part alone with tax was close to $200 anyway. This repair shop has done nice work for me for other motors I had them work on, so I didn't mind paying the labor. I was able to just leave the boat with them (went on to my real job) and picked it up a few days later after the part came in.

Sometimes, it takes a big bill to drive the point home how careful I need to navigate, so I don't hit anything.
When I'm on the Hudson River with it's 6-8 foot tide it can be easy to hit a stump or sand bar that was 6 feet lower when I passed over it only a few hours before. Chasing fishies into the shallows can be costly

Here is a pic of what looked to be a simple aluminum ring held on by the two bolts. But the other side since it supports the prop shaft makes it a unique and costly item!

Be careful out there. Use a navigational map or GPS with a Navionics chip or similar installed and if you have either of those, also . . . most importantly, pay attention to where you are . . . and do a walk around inspection before and after launching!

Here is the pic of what appears to be an simple and inexpensive ring, but wasn't!

 

[ONERCBOATER]

Re: Damn, Mercury really nails you for replacement parts . . . Navigate carefully!

well my personal favorite was "you can't buy one secondary coil..... you have to buy both primarys and all 4 secondaries as a group...that will be $800". It was sobering especially in light of the fact I was going to sell the darn thing.
That said, it is an expensive sport all around, they are expensive, high performance machines, the production runs are smaller and shorter than most auto/small engine/heck even motorcycle engines, that makes them very expensive to produce comparatively. When you look at the performance that they are designed for none of the auto/small engine/ motorcycle engines even comes close to them... can you imagine running a auto/small engine/motorcycle engine at redline uphill with maximum rated load for hours and expecting it not to fail or be damaged.

Sean

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: Damn, Mercury really nails you for replacement parts . . . Navigate carefully!

Ouch! On the carrier piece.

You will not hit that rock this week....... Champlain is 3' over flood level.

 

[Expidia]

Re: Damn, Mercury really nails you for replacement parts . . . Navigate carefully!

Ya Sean, this is true about running outboards wide open. They seem to love it! Outboards really are amazing machines.

Thx Bob, we love Champlain. Last season though we got caught returning from the Burlington marina going back to the public launch site at the end of Shelburne Bay. All of a sudden a freak wind storm came out of nowhere as we were smack in the middle of the bay. Huge 3-6 foot rollers! I had to hit them diagonally and we were soaked as the waves were breaking over our port side for about 2 miles and then all of a sudden I looked behind me towards Burlington and the waters were flat again.

We usually launch and hang around the Valcor Island area because no matter how windy it is there is always a sheltered cove on Valcor to anchor. The Four Brothers Islands are also a somewhat sheltered area to hang out in. If the weather looks good and it's early we will cross the 10 miles to Burlington and have lunch downtown. But the winds can pick up later in the day on Champlain very quickly and if we stay to late the crossing back can be a little hairy

The next day in the local paper had a story that a freak wind storm hit the Burlington area. That was one of the scariest times I've ever been through in our 14 foot boat. I purposely chose to launch in Shelburne Bay that day since we were staying in a hotel on that side and since that bay is protected somewhat from the winds. This wind storm tracked right up through the bay from the main lake.

I have an enclosure, but the windows were not zippered in because it was such a beautiful day. Even with the enclosure up, the bow is still open, so I think I'll go back to my canvas guy and have him make up a dodger arrangement for that open bow. I rarely get myself caught in those situations as I track the radar.gov website on my cellphone very closely. But this freak wind storm did not even show up.

Nothing like that has ever happened to us before. The one thing I've learned with boating on Champlain over the past 15 years is no matter how big a boat you are on . . . This lake commands REPECT!

 

[Faztbullet]

Re: Damn, Mercury really nails you for replacement parts . . . Navigate carefully!

But $177 just for this part

Should have got it thru boats.net, only $125.48.....
http://www.boats.net/parts/search/M..., Propeller Shaft - 2:1 Gear Ratio/parts.html

 

[Expidia]

Re: Damn, Mercury really nails you for replacement parts . . . Navigate carefully!

Thx for that reply Fatzbullet, Ya I knew I could get the part online and do it myself.
But with the slowdown of parts coming from Japan just because a site lists the part they can charge your credit card and I might not see the parts for 2 months

Another eye opener from that parts sheet is the cost of the lower end housing $2,200 and that's at a discount. Think how much it would cost to have the dealer replace it.

I saved your link for future reference for any future repairs I might do myself. I have 3 Merc outboards!

I preferred to have the authorized Merc repair shop do it for me in this case because I wanted them to inspect it for any water damage to the bearings because if those ears were cracked and broken while I was using it last year water could have seeped in behind the seal.

It's a messy job too because everything inside is covered in gear oil and would have to be all washed off to inspect everything.

If I didn't catch the cracked ring ears a few days ago I would have launched and lost the entire prop and attached shaft. Adding up those lost discount parts off the sheet you pointed me to would have been at least another $800 in lost parts including the prop.

In the past when ever I tried to look up parts on mercury parts express site I could never find the correct part I needed. It's easier to walk into a dealer and just order it.

For the few extra bucks I also like to give this Merc repair shop business because we need these small shops to stay in business. The dealer where I bought my boat, their shop repairs are super high. I don't know how this repair shop stayed in business when the gas prices were over $5 at the marina pumps a few years ago most boaters just stayed in port. It's going to be over $5 again and this time around should close the doors on even more marinas, dealers and repair shops in my opinion.