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  1. Lou C

    Oil Analysis for high-hour 4.5L 250 HP

    Scott take a look at a Merc parts diagram you'll see that the 4.5 has many features of the old 4.3 1) 90* included angle between cyls, why would you design a brand new V6 with a 90* angle instead of a 60* angle which is normal for V6s 2) same split journal crank 3) same balance shaft set up 4)...
  2. Lou C

    SAFETY ALERT: Bow Seating Hazard (Malibu)

    Four Winns briefly made a model called the Convertible, it was just like my bow rider without the bow seats, and had a panel you open up to access the bow for docking or running it up on the trailer. The area where the seats are on the bowrider were for storage. The advantage of this was the...
  3. Lou C

    Fuel injected parts no longer available

    Once you've done the Q-jet it really isn't hard, taking off the air horn is a bit tricky but again your second rebuild will take half the time of the first. Yes you can get aftermarket carbs from Amazon....but do they work? What I do with all my small engines that have a float bowl type carb is...
  4. Lou C

    Fuel injected parts no longer available

    Rebuilding a Quadrajet or Holley 4 bbl is no harder than a small engine carb. I don’t mind trouble shooting electronic engines since that’s what all our vehicles are now what I do mind is NLA parts. With carbs & points ignition it’s just not an issue. BTW the fancy Autel scanner that I bought...
  5. Lou C

    Off-Season Float Battery Charging, 2 Batteries

    I like the NOCO Genius 10 I bought last year. Thinking of picking up another. If you have an old charger, check what voltage it is putting into the battery. I had an old Schumacher that was charging at 16.5V! The NOCO charges at the rate you'd expect.
  6. Lou C

    Oil Analysis for high-hour 4.5L 250 HP

    Here's the one up to last year. The high levels of sodium and high wear were the beginnings of leaking head gaskets (boat is 100% used in salt water). Got water in a cyl at the end of '16 season, replaced heads with reman units over the winter of 2016/2017 (took old ones to a machine shop, found...
  7. Lou C

    OMC vs Volvo drives

    Find out what your local mechanics like to work on and buy that. Here you can get service on both Volvo & Merc but not sure about the rest of the country. OMCs no one wants to work on. So I have to be my own mechanic as far as I can take it. I have a spare drive I am going to get rebuilt, I...
  8. Lou C

    Oil Analysis for high-hour 4.5L 250 HP

    Probably will take a couple weeks. BTW I have oil analyses on this same engine dating back to 2011.
  9. Lou C

    Fuel injected parts no longer available

    A failure could be just that simple. Given how EFI works you can see how there are many more failure points than with the older points system or even the Merc Thunderbolt system. Think of how many fewer connections there are on an engine with either a points ignition/carb, or a stand alone...
  10. Lou C

    Oil Analysis for high-hour 4.5L 250 HP

    Interesting I have done 3 oil analyses with the Merc 25/40 conventional oil and every time it was still in grade for a 40 wt. This year I tried their Syn Blend 25/50 and am waiting on a sample I sent in this week. This is Merc’s best oil for racing sterndrives & Verado outboards. Will report...
  11. Lou C

    Fuel injected parts no longer available

    Not sure if the programming is similar or the same from an automotive ECM vs marine; I would suspect it’s not and that the marine engine ECU was programmed to run a good bit richer to avoid burning valves & pistons under the constant load of marine use. In the case of buying a boat that won’t...
  12. Lou C

    Lowering the bunks . . .

    Looks like that pic was taken at low tide…how much of a depth change do you get between high & low? We get about 6 feet average sometimes a bit more. It took me a couple of seasons to get my boat as low as I could get it with the roller trailer; it’s now about 3” lower than where it originally...
  13. Lou C

    Lowering the bunks . . .

    We are waiting for our ramp to get redone as well. Hopefully it will be steeper! Not too bad with a small boat like ours… A big boat would be tough…
  14. Lou C

    Lowering the bunks . . .

    Ted were you able to get the brakes working better? I recall you were thinking of converting to EOH brakes which while expensive makes a sense on a trailer that is over a certain weight. The thing that can be easy to miss is air in the brake fluid; bleeding a 6 brake system takes time & patience.
  15. Lou C

    Co-owning a boat?

    Sounds like a headache you don't need to have.
  16. Lou C

    Trailer tongue hinge

    That sounds risky to me and no one can really tell you if it's going to be safe, or not. I would not do it. The tongue is one of the most stressed parts of a trailer. When I replaced mine I went the other way, adding a longer tongue to help with launching on the lousy ramps we have. It was a...
  17. Lou C

    Oil Analysis for high-hour 4.5L 250 HP

    What would be very interesting to see would be oil analyses done with the Merc oil vs other popular choices Merc 25/40 mineral Merc 25/40 syn blend Merc 25/50 syn blend (tried this to see how it compares to 25/40 mineral which I’ve used for 10+ years). 15/40 Rotella or 15/40 Delo Straight 30 or 40
  18. Lou C

    Oil type for 2.3L 1988 ford engine

    this is how you fill a Cobra. First get new plastic drain plug screw gaskets for the dipstick and drain and fill plugs (last 2 are the same, the dipstick takes a bigger one). You unscrew the top dipstick/screw before draining from the bottom most drain plug on the bottom of the drive, and place...
  19. Lou C

    Oil Analysis for high-hour 4.5L 250 HP

    Very good report in terms of wear metals but they didn't really explain why the oil viscosity was lower than it should be. Looks to be a high 30 wt viscosity instead of 40. I have used the Mercruiser/Quicksilver oil and done the same analysis with Blackstone and I have not seen it fall out of...
  20. Lou C

    Exhaust riser temperatures

    Here are a couple of pix of the OMC/Volvo thermostat housing. Yes OMC designed it and Volvo just used it when they bought into OMC's sterndrive division.... especially in salt water the passages can get necked down just like the passages for the manifolds and elbows, it is a good idea to rod...
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