Rebuilding Alpha 1 Gen 1 Cost?

[italianstal27]

Well our MC-1 gimbal housing is finally showing enormous signs of corrosion. The bellows is barely covering the pitting.

I believe we have two choices:
1) rebuild another MC-1 and hope our 42 year old sterndrive lasts.
2) Acquire a used alpha 1 with metal that's in good shape, strip it down, repaint, and rebuild. Also buy a new SEI sterndrive.

The thought being, how much money do you want to put into rebuilding an MC-1 gimbal and transom plate with an old sterndrive?

What are people's experience with rebuilding gimbals?

 

[Scott Danforth]

buy a complete SEI drive, install on a Saturday and go boating Sunday.

 

[italianstal27]

So 1300 for the drive, and what's the estimated cost of rebuilding the gimbal and transom plate?

 

[Bondo]

I believe we have two choices:
1) rebuild another MC-1 and hope our 42 year old sterndrive lasts.
2) Acquire a used alpha 1 with metal that's in good shape, strip it down, repaint, and rebuild. Also buy a new SEI sterndrive.

Ayuh,.... What motor is sittin' ahead of this corroded MC-1,..??

Option #1, for Me, would be to buy a hull with Rotten wood, but a Runnin' Alpha 1, or better yet an Alpha, Gen.II driveline in it,.....
Then gut the donor boat, 'n drop the entire thing, pulleys to prop into yer hull,.....

This time of year, 'round here, ya might pay $1500 for a Runnin' 3.0l, in a rotten hull, to $3500. for a 350, Alpha, Gen.II, in a rotten hull.....
Complete, no little expensive parts missin',....
'n of course, again, up here in the sweetwater seas, you'd be hard pressed to find any corrosion or much rust, Anywhere on, or in it,.....

 

[Baylinerchuck]

I find it hard to beat the SEI with the warranty. Unless like bondo said, you find a cheap donor boat.

 

[italianstal27]

yup yup so sounds like buying an SEI for 1300.

Find an alpha 1 gen 1 gimbal / transom / bell housing for cheap and spend roughly 400 on all new parts?

At the end of the day you now have a brand new complete stern drive assembly for about 1700. Hard to beat that!

We're pretty over putting money into the old MC-1 assembly...

 

[iand464]

I did something similar last year to what your talking about doing. Putting an alpha one where a mc-1 was. The drives are interchangeable but the transom parts are not if you have the older transom with the trim limit switch inside and the linear trim indicator. There are a few problems and depending on what you have you can work around them. From my research and doing this here are the problems.

1. Mc 1 transom inner plantes have the rear engine mounts further apart than the alpha.

You need a 78?-82 style inner transom plate with wide engine mounts and the newer hole pattern. Unless you have an engine that they made a belhousing with the narrow mounts. I have a ford so I must stick with the wide mounts

2 The older style MC-1 transoms have a narrower keyhole and the holes in the middle don’t line up.

You’ll need to grind on the transom a little bit and drill new holes. I was replacing my transom anyways when I did this.

3 MC 1 transoms have 5 bolt holes for the exhaust pipe and your MC 1 pipe has 5 bolt holes. The alph transom only has 4. The long bolt hole needs to be filled in or you’ll sink.

My boat lives on a trailer so I decided to fill the extra hole with an aluminum rod turned to the hole diameter pounded in wet with epoxy. Ideally you would put on a pipe for an alpha. If your transom assembly is that corroded the pipes flange is probably bad too.

4 The steering hooks up a little differently and the MC 1 connecting link won’t fit.

i used a link from an outboard. Works fine.

You solve 2 other problems with this swap. First your gimbal ring probably had the splined steering shaft it’s prone to wearing the splines in the gimbal ring out. With the alpha you get a square steering pin/shaft. Also your old style trim limit switch is probably no longer working and you trim with the trailer button. The side mounted senders fix that.

good luck, hopefully this is helpful