My boat lived up to the acronym today.

[xeddog]

I took my boat in for some "routine" maintenance today. Outdrive service and replace the bellows since it has been a while. Last time I was out I noticed that it just didn't seem as smooth as it has in the past, but no water ever got in the boat. I was actually thinking that it might just have been me being paranoid or something. Got a quote of about $400 if all was well. Well, I was too late and all was not well. The bellows was full of water so u-joints were shot, gimbal bearing shot, yada yada yada . . . sigh.

Gonna cost right at $1000. It's been an expensive year for my boat. Just got a new engine installed a couple of months ago. I did the r&r myself so got out of that for "only" about $2000.

I can't use the word I really want to right now. Boats!! Gotta love 'em. At least most of the time.

Wayne

1987 Reinell 215c
OMC 260 (which is now more like an OMC 300 )

 

[Bluestream]

Re: My boat lived up to the acronym today.

If you changed out a motor yourself, why not take on his job as well? The parts you need should be under $200 on ebay. I saw an auction for Gimbal bearing, u-joints and gaskets for $55 (buy it now)

Not hard work either

 

[NHGuy]

Re: My boat lived up to the acronym today.

Tru that

 

[lonemust]

Re: My boat lived up to the acronym today.

Shoot I have to get all 3 bellows (u-joint, exhaust, shifter, Water hose), Gimball bearing, an oil seal for the driveshaft, and the gaskets. Oh yah, and a new lower shift cable for my boat. At a dealer I'm looking about $450 but though this site I can get everything for about $250 including shippping. $300 for labor at the shop. $700-$900 total if a shop does it. $250-$300 if I do it. I know how to do the stuff so I can do it myself, if you know how to do it do it yourself and save on the labor cost exspecial when you're looking at anywhere from $50-$100hr for labor. And I was told it would take about 4hrs.

 

[xeddog]

Re: My boat lived up to the acronym today.

Under normal conditions I would probably have done it myself, and I did do the last bellows replacement myself, and a shifter cable replacement too, but that was probably 10 years ago. This time I just figured that since I was going to have to move my boat out of the way (I was having some concrete work done), and since I only had a couple of days to get it done because my son and I were going fishing (I would probably take a week) that I would just let an expert do the maintenance this time. The plan was to take it in on Thursday morning and pick it back up that evening. I was, however, a little concerned because it was starting to get just a little bit hard to get into reverse. I still got it back on Friday so I was ready to go fishing, but my son had to cancel and the fishing trip is off.

Wayne

P.S. Yeah. I know 10 years is a long time. LONG time.