Hello all, First post here on Iboats. I have a 1994 FourWinns 201 Libby with the OMC 454 and Cone Clutch King Cobra stern drive. The boat is in great shape but i have been having nothing but issues lately. I bought it back in April and took her on the maiden voyage, ran great, shifted great, there was about 2 gallons of water in the bildge after about 4 hours on the lake. I parked it and had to work out of town for a month. it rained the entire time i was gone and my cover had water seeping into the engine bay. I took it out memorial day and it started fine and ran good for about 20 minutes. I idled for about 2 mins and shut the engine off. 20 mins later i started back up and it ran like dog ****. I opened up the engine cover and it was full of condinsation. I nursed it back to shore, ripped into the ignition system (MSD 6AL, MSD distributor and Blaster2) replaced all plugs, wires, cap and rotor. Took her out again and ran like crap again. after much troubleshooting i did a compression test and had nothing on the #1 cylinder. Took a borescope and looked at the piston and noticed a mark from the valve. I had cupped a valve. I did not have time to pull the heads so i opened up the phone book and found a reputible mechanic. he pulled the engine and drive out of the boat and took the heads to a shop down the street with a 3 week wait. i took the liberty to call around to see if any other machine shops had time to do them and they all did. I asked my mechanic if he would mind if we went some where else b/c i was moving soon and 3 weeks before they can even look at them simply wasn't going to work. He flipped out on me and threw a tantrum. finally he said if i want to do it go right ahead but he cant gurentee anything. had one head rebuilt. the other was cracked and had to be replaced. after 2 1/2 months i finally got the boat back in the water and i took her out again. about 2 miles from my dock i slowed the boat down to go under a bridge and shifted into nuetral. the boat would not shift back into FWD. i tried and tried, mean while i lifted the engine cover to discover that i was taking on water. thankfully after about an hour of paddeling and a burned up bildge pump a nice individual towed me the 2 miles home and was compensated with a case of beer and 60 bucks (all i had in the boat). There must have been 300-400 gallons of water in there. Anyway, back to the mechanic. after another 2 weeks, i was told that there are seals to be replaced and that my cone clutch is slipping and he doesnt want anything to do with it. It sure as hell wasnt slipping before i gave it to him. could it be the wrong type of oil (synth vs. convent)? he did empty and service it. Oh BTW I'm moving 400 miles away at the end of the month and he knows this. WHAT AM I TO DO? Can i get the Cone clutch parts still? Volvo SX or DP swap work with the 454? I have already called the B.B.B. and gave him an "F" for Fail.
