Not sure it is working right

[mdrinkwater]

I have an 86 searay seville, 4.3l with an OMC Cobra outdrive....

First boat....I listened to what they told me at Cabellas, changed the outdrive oil, replacing it with 1 quart (before I had the manual), ran it in the driveway on muffs for a week while I was getting the engine running good....took the boat out...and blew the pinion bearing away.

Checked all the forums, and went ahead anyway with removing the outdrive, replaced the bearing and the bearing carrier....tried to install the outdrive, but it wouldn't slip in....realigned the engine, got the out drive in, ran the boat almost 2 hours with no issues.

My questions are:

How do you know when the boat is 'on plane'?

None of the guages work...so I have new ones, just have not put them in yet, I think we might have hit around 20mph, the prop is a 14 inch 19 degree pitch, so I'm thinking at WOT we should be about 32mph...we had 4 people onboard (2 adults, a 15year old and 10 year old)

I haven't checked yet, but I am betting the engine compression is a bit low, I know it seems to burn a bit of oil.

My thought is (and I know what the boat is worth, I don't care, it's a great boat, we like it very much):

I should rebuild the engine (it bothers me to have something that I am unsure what kind of maintainence was done or not)
I found the kit, with a new cam for just over $300...of course, the block needs to be honed/bored, and the heads also will need to be redone

I'd like to swap over to the Merc Alpha Gen II....found this kit with the outdrive for just under $1900.

I found a new control box using 33c cables (sound right?) for $200

I feel like with the cost of the boat and all this, I will be just over the top value of the boat per NADA...which doesn't really matter to me, because I feel like at the point I'm done, the boat will be reliable, and should be good for years to come.

Does this sound like I am working in the right direction? I figure I can always sell the OMC outdrive and regain a few bucks, I should be able to sell it for an easy $800.

I'm just worried about the outdrive swapping, and how I would pull the engine and get it back in.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Not sure it is working right

What bearing failed? In the drive or are you confusing that with the gimbal bearing?

You used an alignment bar to align the engine with the gimbal bearing right?

You filled the drive from the middle hole and not the bottom one right?

What is your WOT RPM?

Have you given the boat a full tuneup including spark plugs, points, rotor, fuel filters and set dwell and timing?

 

[mdrinkwater]

Re: Not sure it is working right

The boat was converted to electronic ignition, so no points or condensor, I did install a new distributor cap and wires, I didn't do the plugs yet....seems everytime I touch something, I need to disassemble 5 other things, buy 7 special tools...etc...

The bearing I blew out is the pinion bearing in the upper unit, that meshes with the drive shaft gear. I got the OMC shim tool, pressed the bearings in etc....that all worked good, even bought new shims as the manual says not to reuse the old ones. I did everything per manual specs.

The alignment tool was used to line the engine/gimbal bearing up....grease the tool, check the spline pattern (of which there was none when I started) turn the engine 90 degrees, check, turn engine 90 degrees, check...etc....etc...

I just have a feeling the boat should go faster...I could be wrong...but I am still unsure what, 'on plane' means...or how I tell if the boat does it.

When I first bought the boat, we took it, and it ran, but it ran like crap....that was when I thought I should change the oil in the out drive which was milky.....I got the engine running pretty decent, it was almost 90 degrees out of time.


This go around, it ran good...a bit rough, maybe still a bit out of time, I'm sure it needs plugs as well, but I got back, and checked the out drive oil, that looked great this time, aside from the stray metal shavings I expected to see, as I did not disassemble the lower section. The plan was to clean the upper section, fix the bearing and the carrier....fill with the gear oil, run it, then drain, refill and try to get those stray particals out.

Shifting works good, there is no noise from the outdrive, I did reconnect the exhaust bellows while it was off, as the guy I bought it from took it off for some reason. The engine oil looks good, no water or burning, temp hold good about 175.

 

[hayward6]

Re: Not sure it is working right

A boat is on a proper plain when you get up to speed and the bow comes back down closer to level. If everything is running right and weight distribution is good, it's a much smoother and more efficient ride. When you first take off you're sitting deep in the water and the bow comes up real high, if you continue to run like that you're not very dynamic, so the design of the hull and sterndrive work together to cause the boat to rise up out of the water and sort of skim the surface. If you're not getting this it can be for a number of reasons... 1. under powered 2.trim is wrong (Make sure the drive is all the way down) 3. maybe the boat is really heavy from water intrusion?

I have a 20' boat with the same size motor and sterndrive you have and it gets up on plain swiftly and does between 45-50 knots. Before I rebuilt it, it could barely drag itself through the water Check everything! Everything you miss in an inspection can cause more damage if unchecked, and believe me you want the satisfaction of knowing what you have.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Not sure it is working right

Not tearing the drive apart to do a complete cleaning is going to come back to haunt you possibly. What makes you think little pieces of your destroyed bearig isn't going to make it into the other bearings in the drive?

To repeat some questions:

1) What is your WOT RPM?

2) You filled the drive from the middle hole right? (may explain your bearing failure)

3) Replaced fuel filters?

4) Checked timing?

 

[mdrinkwater]

Re: Not sure it is working right

Not tearing the drive apart to do a complete cleaning is going to come back to haunt you possibly. What makes you think little pieces of your destroyed bearig isn't going to make it into the other bearings in the drive?

To repeat some questions:

1) What is your WOT RPM?

2) You filled the drive from the middle hole right? (may explain your bearing failure)

3) Replaced fuel filters?

4) Checked timing?

I am going from everything I read that it should be somewhere in the range of 4000-4200...RPM guage does not work, so I have no clue what I am running....the wife did tell me I should have brought the tach/dwell meter

No, I have not replaced the fuel filter ( I am assuming the fuel water seperator your talking about) I did mention that to the wife, also the fact the boat had a full tank of gas (I think I have burned about 1/4 tank) when I got it, I did put some stabalizer in there

It was extremely easy to pull the large chunks of bearing out before dis-assembly, I know, all that is left was shavings from the race spinning in the bearing carrier.

Yes...Yes I did fill the out drive (2nd time around after fixing it) from the middle hole...I then took what would not pump out of the container, and poured the last bit of the 2 quarts into the top hole....I cranked the engine for a couple seconds, and checked the TOP dipstick, and it showed oil. After the run on Sunday morning, it looked the same color as when I put it in, I didn't see any difference, and it actually took rubbing it in my fingers to get to see that I did indeed have the shavings circulating.

I don't want to sound like I did something really stupid, but the lower section seems like a huge pain to disassemble, and I did run a quart of clean oil through to see if I could get some of that metal out, I was under the assumption that filling it properly (which had I done to begin with) would circulate through, and then help pull the last bits out.

The parts I could reach, I did clean and coat with oil/grease/lok-tite as per the manual.

 

[mdrinkwater]

Re: Not sure it is working right

Yes...I checked the timing also...the bad part....there is no guage on the harmonic balancer, but I see the timing mark, and I know I am fairly close as the boat actually starts and runs...and the carb was rebuilt.

 

[hayward6]

Re: Not sure it is working right

Yes...I checked the timing also...the bad part....there is no guage on the harmonic balancer, but I see the timing mark, and I know I am fairly close as the boat actually starts and runs...and the carb was rebuilt.

An engine will start and run while a good 90 degrees out of time, it will get bad fast as you gain rpms though. It's critical that it be right on, there really is no "close enough" when it comes to timing. It's an exact measurement, get the timing light out With the guage missing you can probably look at some pictures online and mark where it should be... again it needs to be as close as possible.

 

[mdrinkwater]

Re: Not sure it is working right

I will say...when the shift handle is in neutral position, the engine revs like a car not in gear....I also noted when running the boat, it pretty much seemed like I hit WOT about 1/2 way up from dropping it into gear.

So maybe I need some cable adjustment as well??? I see that I have the red cable from the engine to the outdrive...so I think these are the replacement cables from the recall if I read correctly?

The other part of the puzzle here is, I live just outside Chicago, and the season is about to end, so I am getting ready to store the boat for the winter, and was trying to assess when I should think of taking it out pending how much work is ahead of me.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Not sure it is working right

You need to know EXACTLY where the timing is. You need to replace the timing tab or figure out where TDC is so you can use an advance timing light. Without knowing this you are basically in the dark.

By not filling the drive from the middle hole the first time, that is why your bearing went out because the drive wasn't properly filled.

You need the tach working or buy a shop tach to see what you are running.

If that fuel is over a year old, all bets are off how well your engine will run. I would run it off a portable tank just to make sure it isn't your fuel causing your power issues. Putting stabilizer after the fact does nothing to revive old fuel. If the fuel is bad, there is nothing that will bring it back.

As long as your drive is shifting into and out of gear easily, your cable doesn't need to be adjusted.

You really need to get a service manual. I sent you a PM.

You need your gauges working. I am assuming your temp and oil pressure gauges aren't working either! If so, don't run your engine until you fix these.

 

[mdrinkwater]

Re: Not sure it is working right

More questions---aimed at Bruceb....

There is no on/off valve from fuel tank to filter to carb....this is bad isn't it? I should install one.

The only filter I see or have is the water/fuel seperator....it looks like it had been replaced recently, but again, I have no idea how long the gas tank has had the gas in it.

I did try to get help locally with the outdrive...everyone at the marinias turned me away with a, 'we don't work on THAT', I did find a place in Minnisota, but ended up just putting my nose to the grindstone and doing it....it did take 3 weeks to do.

The exact order things were done in were like this:

Got the boat....put it in the water....it ran....but really lound and really bad

Rebuilt the carburator, installed that, and timed the motor....(I can see a bracket that should have marks, but none there, I could see the timing mark riding on top of the balancer instead of even near the mark....I could tell as I got nearer the bracket the motor ran better)

Timing the engine, resulted in getting bit....so I got new cap and wires......also new ignition coil because that broke
Changed out drive oil...looked milky white (water getting in from what I read) only put 1 quart of oil in an outdrive that take 2
Took boat out to test on the water....boat ran good for 5 minutes.....broke boat

Fixed out drive...took boat out....still feels like there is a miss (could be plugs like was mentioned earlier)

Bottom line, there is no idication of how many hours there are....cobra outdrive is a pain to get parts for or find help with....the main question is, the wife decided to spend our vacation fund on a boat (the assumtion is we can do more) does it make sense to just rebuild the engine, do the outdrive conversion...and the boat for the most part is at 0 hours and I know what needs to be done to maintain her for years of enjoyment. BTW....I did by new guages, but have not installed them yet, I was going to make a nice wood insert for the dash over the winter and mount them in the spring.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Not sure it is working right

You have a lot of diagnosis to do before you dump the engine in my opinion. You need to do a compression check.

As far as the drive is concerned, I would be seperating the halves and flushing it out. Its not that hard to split the halves.

If you had milky oil in your drive, you have a leak. You need to pressure test your drive.

You need to dump the contents of the filter into a glass jar and see what it looks like. Hopefully, no water. Then replace with a new filter.

 

[mdrinkwater]

Re: Not sure it is working right

Compression test is on my to do list....the filter is added....and I understand the timing....I can work that out as well...maybe I am making a mountain out of a molehill

 

[mdrinkwater]

Re: Not sure it is working right

You need to know EXACTLY where the timing is. You need to replace the timing tab or figure out where TDC is so you can use an advance timing light. Without knowing this you are basically in the dark.

You really need to get a service manual. I sent you a PM.

You need your gauges working. I am assuming your temp and oil pressure gauges aren't working either! If so, don't run your engine until you fix these.

Cool...I have a tach/dwell meter that works well, The manual you sent is a lot better than the Seloc...and the oil pressure and temp guage work. The speedo works kind of...not well...Tach is reading something like 2000 RPM off, so I was probably about 3000 RPM when I had it out on Sunday...I know it doesn't sound great, but I was kind of going off the fact the boat actually had a real wake this time around.

 

[mdrinkwater]

Re: Not sure it is working right

THANK-YOU THANK-YOU THANK-YOU!!!

I consider myself your run of the mill shade tree mechanic, but I missed the simpilest thing....I bought into what the guy I bought the boat from was telling me, assumed he did a tune up......after all these replies, I got a set of plugs.....I found one plug that the top was broke off...the top was no where to be found.

I found out what a boat going on plane is!!! This boat with 4 of us aboard was running 35 mph....yeah..the speedo started working, intermittently but it worked.

We took close to a 4 hour trip, what a rush it was.

Now the bad......

Almost back to the launch...she died....all electrical works, trim, lights, radio..but no ignition...

I was thinking about it, and it looks as though a new ignition switch was put in, I know it wasn't exactly tight to the dash, so sometimes it turned when you turned the key, and I had noticed that every once in a while when you turn the key you got nothing, I just thought the whole assembly was turning, but now...that is what's happening now I'm thinking a bad ignition switch.

There was a guy at the dock that crossed the selonoid and starter hot...and it worked, but I can't get anything, not even a click from the starter, and the boat (as I think about what happened) seemed to be losing it's spark as we were cruising.

Now the other part is, it actually just died, after seeming to loose some umph...and I had the key issue, but then on the second try, she started right up, and ran great for about another 5 minutes, and then seemed to fizzle out, luckily, I was towed over to a dock about 60 feet away, and I checked the battery which looked good, and like I said, everything worked, except the ignition circuit...I really thing its the switch...any thoughts?

 

[mdrinkwater]

Re: Not sure it is working right

Oh yeah...sorry I was so excited it ran so good, I forgot...Bruce...thanks a million for the manual, a huge help...I did get the timing dead on 3 degrees (not sure what octane was is there, so I kind of did what sounded better) I set the idle with a tach meter, the only thing I didn't do was the fuel filter, I got the one from the manual, but the one on the boat is bigger, and on super tight, so I figured, before I damaged it trying to get it off, I would order the bigger size....but I was able to burn about 1/2 a tank of gas, and before that 1/4 tank, so if I refill and change that filter, I'm confident I should be on track.