OMC Cobra specialty tools

[martyh]

Hoping some of the shop guys will chime in. I?m looking for the specialty tools for working on the OMC Cobra drives. Tried E-bay and the other normal places but nothing yet. Any other ideas or places?

 

[Gary H NC]

Re: OMC Cobra specialty tools

What tools are you looking for?
They are getting hard to find...

 

[martyh]

Re: OMC Cobra specialty tools

What tools are you looking for?
They are getting hard to find...

Mostly the spanner wrenches and the jig for setting shims.

 

[HT32BSX115]

Re: OMC Cobra specialty tools

Howdy,


You might contact these guys... http://sterndrive.info/

Otherwise ebay is about the only place I would look if I was trying to find that stuff......

Now might be a good time to consider the SEI option.


Regards,



Rick

 

[martyh]

Re: OMC Cobra specialty tools

Howdy,


You might contact these guys... http://sterndrive.info/

Otherwise ebay is about the only place I would look if I was trying to find that stuff......

Now might be a good time to consider the SEI option.


Regards,



Rick

I checked into them already and may have to go that direction.

I am getting certs for sterndrive repair (OMC, Mercruiser, and Volvo Penta) and want to start collecting tools for all the drives. I know the OMC Cobra went out years ago but, they are still out there and people like options...

 

[Don S]

Re: OMC Cobra specialty tools

I am getting certs for sterndrive repair (OMC, Mercruiser, and Volvo Penta)

How are you getting these certs? The only way I know of is by going to the dealer schools for each.

 

[martyh]

Re: OMC Cobra specialty tools

How are you getting these certs? The only way I know of is by going to the dealer schools for each.

Yes, you are correct but, I have to go the long way around to get there. I am attending Skagit Valley College http://www.skagit.edu/directory.asp_Q_pagenumber_E_209 and enrolled in the Marine Maintenance Technology program that covers drive train and propulsion systems along with a few other key areas.

The College works with the local boat shops to get us internships. That gets our foot in the door for employment opportunities. And after that, if we choose to pursue the certifications, than it?s something that is available. And that?s the route I am pursuing.

And even though the OMC Cobra stuff is slowly going away they are still out there. I have been told once I finish the program that there is a test site in California that still certifies people to work on them.

 

[Don S]

Re: OMC Cobra specialty tools

Don't waste your money on those tools, and don't waste your money on those certs. I can probably come up with paperwork and certifications from California saying I am a qualified airlines pilot or brain surgeon.
The fact is, there is not a big demand for drive rebuilders. Betweem what people think you should charge (after reading a bunch of forums) and what you can actually get will probaly never pay for the tools, let alone paying for any formal training and the actual OEM manuals you will need to repair those drives.
Then, you have to consider warranty of your work. Trust me, not every job will go perfectly. Outdrive rebuilding is just a very small part of being a Marine tech. VERY SMALL. You screw up one seal, or one shim during a rebuild, and the drive blows up, you will be the one to pay for it all.
Just be very careful, it's not a bed of roses out there for a marine tech, and opening your own buisness is even harder if you don't have a lot of overall experience.

 

[HT32BSX115]

Re: OMC Cobra specialty tools

I can probably come up with paperwork and certifications from California saying I am a qualified airlines pilot

Airline Pilot?.....Probably not.... ..... Brain Surgeon?......maybe!!!

 

[martyh]

Re: OMC Cobra specialty tools

Don't waste your money on those tools, and don't waste your money on those certs. I can probably come up with paperwork and certifications from California saying I am a qualified airlines pilot or brain surgeon.
The fact is, there is not a big demand for drive rebuilders. Betweem what people think you should charge (after reading a bunch of forums) and what you can actually get will probaly never pay for the tools, let alone paying for any formal training and the actual OEM manuals you will need to repair those drives.
Then, you have to consider warranty of your work. Trust me, not every job will go perfectly. Outdrive rebuilding is just a very small part of being a Marine tech. VERY SMALL. You screw up one seal, or one shim during a rebuild, and the drive blows up, you will be the one to pay for it all.
Just be very careful, it's not a bed of roses out there for a marine tech, and opening your own buisness is even harder if you don't have a lot of overall experience.

Hey Don,

Thanks for the encouragement.

I realize that complete outdrive rebuilding is a ?very small? part of the bigger picture
and that sometimes it?s more time/cost effective to just plug in a new/rebuilt drive or sell/scrap the boat. But, as long as manufactures are making boats and installing electronics, engines and propulsion systems (to name a few) into boats somebody will need to fix them when they break regardless of what the problem is.

And, as we can both agree, as with any business, if something gets screwed up or repaired incorrectly during the initial repair than it will come back to have it repaired again, and it will be at the expense of the business regardless of if it?s a dealership/ repair shop or personal business.

I?m not expecting a bed of roses going in or even a walk down the yellow brick road.
The fact is that boats are still fun to a lot of people and they provide many hours of joy to them on the water. They still break or wear out, and as you all well know, somebody has to fix them.

We can both agree that Marine Technicians are not Technicians from birth. They start out in many different ways including going to formal schools for formal training. I have been in the automotive field for the past 22 years and have been doing repair and maintenance on friends and my own boats for the past 8 years. I am burned out in the automotive field and I wanted a change. I have an addiction to boats and being on the water so, I applied at a ?Marine? repair shop last spring and they told me I was not qualified because I did not have any certifications in marine repair.

Think back many years ago when you first got your start?.. Would you do it all over again, only you can answer that. Ask other people that same question about their field of work and I bet you get different answers.

I?m not expecting a smooth carefree road and I am not claiming that I know everything and I realize that knowledge comes with time and experience as it does in any occupational field and, this is my entry point. I appreciate your constructive criticism but, I came here looking for information on tools?..

 

[DBreskin]

Re: OMC Cobra specialty tools

Marty - Your reply to Don shows the careful, considered thinking I'd want from my marine mechanic. No flaming or rants, just move forward and get the job done.
Good luck with your new career.

 

[Ducatinut]

Re: OMC Cobra specialty tools

Hoping some of the shop guys will chime in. I?m looking for the specialty tools for working on the OMC Cobra drives. Tried E-bay and the other normal places but nothing yet. Any other ideas or places?

My experience says that the only tools you need for the Cobras is a socket set and a dumpster (okay, recycling bin).

Want to provide a service for your customers? Don't rebuild that trashed Cobra. Anything more than seals or a grease change and you're cheating your customers and wasting your time. The parts to REBUILD a cobra cost more than the SEI conversion kit and, now YOU are on the hook for marginal parts and/or a bad housing.

We can argue all day long about technical merits of the different designs out there, but it all comes down to dollars and cents. As much respect as I have for OMC's engineers, Mercruiser bits are plentiful and the aftermarket has made them affordable.

Best of luck to you---

Fair winds,

Chris

 

[HT32BSX115]

Re: OMC Cobra specialty tools

I think you're going to find that since SEI is now offering the "retrofit" kit to replace Cobras, there's not going to be a lot of Cobra rebuilds happening in the future.

That will have several effects.....one of which will probably be to cause parts prices to come down. Most people, once they discover that they can replace the drive with a brand new one for less than the cost of a questionable or no-warranty rebuild, they'll opt or the replacement.

This will further shove the Cobras down...

 

[rodbolt]

Re: OMC Cobra specialty tools

I gotta go with DonS on this as well as some others.
its simply not worth it to me or my customer to attempt to repair junk.
most engine or drives over 10 years old I simply try not to get involved.
a good case is a recent repair on a 24 wellcraft 1985 model with a 260 mercruiser and alpha drive.
came in with the corrosion had banana peeled the trim cyl caps,trim hoses frayed and the ferrules cracked, the drive was so corroded it was condemed out of hand.
shop owener made a 3000 dollar estimate.
as I started dissasembling it we found both the gimbal housing and gimbal ring bad as well.
by the time it left with new SEI trim cylinders and drive coupled with some good used castings the bill was over 6K, took a long time to get our money and the boat is still worth maybe 2K at best.
another job I tried to get out of and a disclaimer was signed before I started,
its also why I wont work on cobra units,any 470 stuff and absolutly no stringer drive stuff.
simply isnt any money avavilble working on junk.
its also why most the posting on this forum deals with folks trying to repair it themselves or they just bought a ragged boat and had no clue what they were getting into.
I also dont work much on the volvo 270 and 275 stuff and NO rubber band volvo engines anymore. parts are just getting to difficult and expensive to find.
recently I spent 7 hours hunting for an intermediate housing for a jackshafted DPE drive.
finnaly found one in new york for 1000 dollars. >Volvo lists them but they are backordered with no release date.
you start messing with junk when you had no experience with that junk when it was new junk bad things can and will happen rapidly.
read the DPE manual on removing the fwd trim cyl anchor pins, then actually try it.
wont work and never has.

 

[a70eliminator]

Re: OMC Cobra specialty tools

I've made a couple of the OMC special tools of my own. I found that these special tools are nothing more than a jig enableing a mechanic (flat rate) set adjustments without measuring, just stick the jig in there and tighten the bolts.
I've found work arounds for some of these special tools it just takes way more time that a flat rate mechanic has.

 

[martyh]

Re: OMC Cobra specialty tools

Guys, I appreciate your advice and information but, I gotta tell ya, you guys crack me up. I come on her asking about information on locating tools and it gets blown way out of proportion and I get flamed for it. A simple question or so one would have thought.

To start off with, I was told last spring that I wasn?t qualified to work at a ?Marine? shop because I have no ?Marine? certifications and now I?m told that formal training and certifications is a waist of money. It was also mentioned that rebuilding the Cobra was a disservice to customers, and blah blah blah?

As I stated in post number 10 and I will quote myself,

I realize that complete outdrive rebuilding is a ?very small? part of the bigger picture
and that sometimes it?s more time/cost effective to just plug in a new/rebuilt drive or sell/scrap the boat.

I have worked in the repair field long enough to know that it is up to the ?service advisor? (or even a technician if in a smaller shop) to ?educate? the customer/s when they are looking at a repair job on their (car, truck, or bus, and now boat) and it?s usually broken down into options. Meaning this is what?s wrong with it and these are your options. Option 1 is this and will cost you this much and has this warranty if any, and Option 2 is this and will cost you this much and carries this warranty if any, etc, etc, etc?

I also know that some jobs can go sideways once the tech gets into it and be way off of the original estimate or get to a point where you want to call it quits. And it?s even okay to turn down jobs for whatever the reason is too. I understand that, and I completely agree with all of you. But, in the end, it still comes down to the customer has the final decision based off of the ?Service Advisors information and advice?.

If a customer or employer wants to "pay me for my time" to work on a Cobra drive (regardless of the reasons) than who am I to argue? And, I can?t very well do it if I don?t have the tools now can I? Sure, some could argue that the shop should supply the tools for the job, and than I will ask, how many of you have wasted time looking for shop tools that are suppose to be in a certain place only to find they are missing for a variety of reasons? I have been there and done that.

?No where? in my posts did I say I was getting into or starting a ?business? for rebuilding old Cobra drives. I was only asking for information on locating the tools to be able to pull them apart or even put them back together if it was requested or required.

Why is it people can spend millions of dollars annually on cigarettes or beer or both (neither of which I do) and yet I?m the one getting flamed or told I am wasting my money for wanting to buy tools or go to a formal school to get a formal education and certificates in Marine repair ?? Doesn?t make any sense to me.

One last comment and I am done. I start pulling the Volvo SX/DP drives apart on Tuesday and in a few weeks I will start into the mercruiser drives. I will also be buying the tools for those drives too and, if you will excuse my sarcasm, should I start a new thread for the people that want to flame me for that or should I leave it here?

To Gary H NC, HT32BSX115, DBreskin, a70eliminator , Thank You, you guys understood my question from the very beginning?.

 

[rodbolt]

Re: OMC Cobra specialty tools

I understood the question, what your being told is advice from some of us that have 30 plus years of experience and remember when the cobra outdrive was a newly released model.
however it was OMC sterndrive division that the tooling was manufactured for and sold to dealerships.
OMC sterndrive dropped the cobra in about 1994 and no longer supported the tool program for the cobra.
so any tooling you may find will either be new old stock or from a defucnt dealer.
its kinda like trying to find studebaker or packard speacial tools.
no one was flaming you, I started out in the automotive side about 1976 and switched in the 80s.
also spent 6 years in the US navys advanced electronics field.
while going back to school for marine work is good its still a starting point.
be aware the last 4 MMI graduates we hired have all since been fired.
most of the tooling for mercruiser can be purchased from Sierra company for about 3000 dollars for the complete set.
Volvo tooling pretty much still comes only from volvo.
some of the BRP and OMC outboard stuff can still be purchased from a BRP dealer.
but the first thing you have to learn is a 2000 dollar boat simply isnt worth a 3000 dollar repair.
at the end of the day the customer is mad,your frustrated and everyone is unhappy.
did a 36 wellcraft 1984 model with twin 260 mercruiser inboards and velvet drive clutches two weeks ago.
both engines,and the rest in general were bad.
I billed the cust 1 hour for inspecting it.
customer did not like my diagnoisis so he took it literally next door.
that shop did 1000 dollars worth of work and neither engine ran when the mad customer picked it up last week.
now that customer is going to tell anyone that will listen what a ripoff joint that place is.
goes back to 1 aw crap will knock down a stack of atta boys.
marine work is NOTHING like the automotive side even though it looks similar.
we here in the salt pond see things auto techs dont even have nightmares about.
when was the last time someone brought their car in with a complaint that after running about 4000 RPM for an hour it heats up or the engine surges.
so for OMC sterndrive tooling, ebay,craigslist or find a dealership that wants to unload them.
same with Force outboard tooling.
in the past I have been certified to perform warrenty work on Honda,Force,mercury,mariner,suzuki,tohatsu and go devil outboards.
I am currently certified on Volvo,mercruiser and I am a master tech for Yamaha.
and I still see things that make me go, huuh?

 

[zbnutcase]

Re: OMC Cobra specialty tools

I have most all Cobra tools and a lot of Stringer tools....haven't used them in years...once in a great while I might do a Cobra reseal if the customer talks real nice to me ( I speak $$) 'nutcase