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  1. Rick Stephens

    Bayliner 175 Rehab

    Your 3.0L boat motor is basically a forklift or water pump engine with a few mostly external parts added to make it marine. For the most part, rebuilding is the same as what you would do with a pickup motor. Parts are more expensive for the 3.0L because it is limited in application. There are no...
  2. Rick Stephens

    1998 Merc 3.0l Front Engine mounting.

    This is, for the most part, a do it yourself forum. There is nothing about your requests that you can't do yourself.
  3. Rick Stephens

    Does this sound normal ?

    3.0L motor always a noisy bastid.
  4. Rick Stephens

    1998 Merc 3.0l Front Engine mounting.

    Remove drive, redo alignment. Alignment check is an annual maintenance requirement anyway. And with front mount rotted, you need to be aware of transom rot as well. The transom is far more likely to cause alignment issues.
  5. Rick Stephens

    Mercruiser 888 no go over 3000rpm

    Welcome to iBoats Forum! Recheck firing order. 1410 calibrated for your motor? Float level checked? What do plugs look like after running poorly? Obviously with a good base motor we'll eventually figure out what's wrong. Rick
  6. Rick Stephens

    Mercruiser 4.3 woes - help please

    I'd probably start with a carb rebuild. Check and double check float height. When you smell gas, it might indicate you have a ruptured diaphragm in your fuel pump. Is the clear plastic tube running from it to your carb got fuel in it? If a carb rebuild does not get it, time to check fuel...
  7. Rick Stephens

    Urgent help - nearly broke down at sea. Fuel Problem.

    A partially empty filter could mean you have a loose connection or a small hole and are sucking air.
  8. Rick Stephens

    79' Wellcraft Bowrider 196 Mercruiser 260 v8

    Need to pull the drive, drain it, split it and replace the water pump impeller and maybe pump housing. Inspect u-joints and gimbal bearing. Grease both. Pull the prop and make sure nothing wound around the prop shaft. Inspect carefully bellows and shift cable. Grease everything up. Refill drive...
  9. Rick Stephens

    Stern drive woes

    You already had that answer in post #3, which you ignored.
  10. Rick Stephens

    79' Wellcraft Bowrider 196 Mercruiser 260 v8

    Buy the service manuals. Service EVERYTHING. Assume nothing was touched in years.
  11. Rick Stephens

    New Motor Vibration issues at low RPMs

    What was for a 7.4L Bravo? If in doubt, always replace u-joint crosses. They can be bad and virtually impossible to check without disassembling them. If you pull em, easier to replace than to decide they are (probably) good and reassemble.
  12. Rick Stephens

    U-Joints for 2003 Alpha One Gen 2

    Serial number is in my freaking sig. This is getting ridiculous. Round and round the mulberry tree.
  13. Rick Stephens

    U-Joints for 2003 Alpha One Gen 2

    I used Moog 315s on my '91 Gen 2 drive.
  14. Rick Stephens

    Alignment help!

    If the alignment bar won't go in, that needs fixing. But if the alignment bar goes in but the drive doesn't, that's another. I have personally seen too much grease in the grooves in the drive shaft before the o-rings were installed. That pushes the o-rings out and keeps the driveshaft fron going...
  15. Rick Stephens

    2011 Mercury 4.3 inboard

    Kinda like the Porsche 911, had to pull the engine to get all the plugs out.
  16. Rick Stephens

    20 foot 1997 Maxum 2050 bowrider propeller question

    Need to think of this as if it is a car always going up hill and stuck in only one gear.. Higher pitch prop is like running in too high a gear, always.
  17. Rick Stephens

    U-Joints for 2003 Alpha One Gen 2

    I like Valvoline Full Synthetic :D
  18. Rick Stephens

    20 foot 1997 Maxum 2050 bowrider propeller question

    Not to pick on you, but you should figure out how to rephrase that, it makes no sense at all to me. Slower RPMs and higher pitch is far less efficient - your motor will be lugging. First priority with ANY propping is to hit the target RPMs at WOT. Your target may not be to spec RPMs, but you...
  19. Rick Stephens

    4.3 fuel problem?

    Best test that oil pressure switch. Make sure everything works the way it is supposed to. That is an important safety feature.
  20. Rick Stephens

    20 foot 1997 Maxum 2050 bowrider propeller question

    All electronic advance, no vacuum. I believe the Thunderbolt V is 24 total degrees. You should be at max advance somewhere over 2500 RPM. You can check advance in base mode, that is disabled. The correct way to check total advance is with a electronic advance timing light. They aren't expensive...
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