vote for the worst designed part.

[73 Dolphin]

My vote goes to the tilt ram on the Force 125 motor. Why thread a receiver for the hydraulic line when you can use a tension ring and a countersunk receptor hole!? Fantastic bit of design.Get the alignment slightly wrong and pop goes the ring and now you are ...well...not in good shape.

Of course you can go get a new receiver ring but that involves removing the ram which, if it's been on for over a week, will be stuck solid.

Any advice or if not then please vote for your own little piece of nautical magic!

 

[mthieme]

Re: vote for the worst designed part.

My biggest pet peeve are lower motor mounts on smaller Mercury outboards.
Why should you have to disassemble the whole darn engine from the top down to replace them? Surely, there's a better way to do it.

 

[Frank Acampora]

Re: vote for the worst designed part.

Well, now, I suppose you are talking about the older Force with the tilt cylinder, shock absorber, and pentagon shaped trim cylinder cap.

The reason you think it is the worst designed part is because you don't understand the realities of production. It is perfectly logically designed for the purpose it is used which includes cost. Everything ALWAYS comes down to money.

The part was purchased for Chrysler engines from Prestolite and probably was for Force too. That is, either from Prestolite or the company that succeeded it. At any rate, it was an outsourced part.

Now, Just like brunswick Force and later Mercury were very slow in changing the design of the engine itself, Prestolite was sluggish in changing its parts also.

The tilt cylinder is simply a shock absorber to which has been added two hydraulic fluid lines so it is a stock part and therefore cheap---which is what an entry level Force engine needs. Cheap parts result in a lower retail price. Internally, the shock absorber is exactly the same as the tilt cylinder. Again, cost savings.

Now, there is not enough wall thickness at the top of the cylinder to thread in a hydraulic fitting so they simply added the sealing taper and the ring with a stock threaded adapter to the hydraulic fitting. Logical! Notice that because the bottom of the cylinder has enough aluminum, it IS threaded for a hydraulic fitting.

To add a boss to allow enough aluminum to thread for a fitting would mean re-designing the whole master mold with more pieces and more actuating machinery. This would skyrocket the cost of the mold AND the finished part which would be passed on to the engine manufacturer and marked up again to the consumer. Do this on all the parts and all of a sudden you have an entry level engine with a premium price. Which is one of the reasons that Merc dropped the line.

So there you have it! In one way you could consider it poorly designed, however, in another way it is the only logical option.

It will be easier to remove the top 3/4 inch nut, drive out the top bar, and slip the ring on from the top. Not easy, just easier if the lower bar is stuck.

 

[73 Dolphin]

Re: vote for the worst designed part.

I am a machinist. I like your explanation, but to simply add a hose clamp with the the threaded insert would have been a much better idea ( being replaceable without removing the whole assembly). And the cost? about $1 - no re-tooling needed.

So I'd have to disagree.It's pure bad design.Period.

 

[Frank Acampora]

Re: vote for the worst designed part.

Ah! Ok! So your issue is not with the actual design of the hydraulics but the fact that the part is not easily replaceable. Could have been designed to be more user friendly. Can't say I disagree, but it's no different than Detroit --or any auto for that matter.

Force is a very old design--West Bend begot Chrysler begot Brunswick Force begot Mercury Force--probably close to 50 years, and everything about them is in some way not as "good" as the competiton. The only exception is the lower unit which was a Chrysler redesign in the late 1970s. 1979 1/2 to be exact. It's a lot better than the old 2 piece but even it has some deficiencies.

For example, The engine crankcase (while slightly packed) is big enough for a cat to wag its tail in, so, the engine has low volumetric efficiency. Exhaust dumps into a common chamber and down a common down tube so, scavenging is not as efficient as it could be. OMC has two seals on the prop shaft, while Force has only one double lip seal. Gears are smaller for equivalent horsepower--they work but with less of a safety factor. I could go on---- These engines, even if the line were continued, would never be the equal of the other major brands without major redesigning. I am not "dissing" the engines, just stating some facts.

However, To me they are like a red headed woman: I accept her with all her faults, I understand her idiosyncracies and deal with them, and she still gives me my ride.

Yeah! I like redheads! They could fall out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down; it wouldn't matter. I even painted the top of one of my Chryslers red so I could call her a redhead. Oooh----Sharing!

 

[73 Dolphin]

Re: vote for the worst designed part.

To be fair, If I had realized how this part actually went together i could have saved a lot of time and frustration.As it is I will have to get a stainless hose clip and drill a hole in the band,place the threaded insert behind it,position and tighten, then attach the hydraulic line. Not really a big deal.

It is ,after all, an old boat with and old motor and though we would all like to be able to perform a simple task simply,it's is not always the case!

So it's off to home depot tomorrow for a hose clamp, then to work to use the pillar drill. When that's done i just need to work out the whole solenoid/relay thing to convert my old 3 wire to this 2 wire, however that works. I guess it's good to have a hobby!

Thanks for all of your advice.It's been a pleasure reading your words and learning of your fondness for redheads!

 

[RRitt]

Re: vote for the worst designed part.

To be fair, If I had realized how this part actually went together i could have saved a lot of time and frustration.As it is I will have to get a stainless hose clip and drill a hole in the band,place the threaded insert behind it,position and tighten, then attach the hydraulic line. Not really a big deal.

It is ,after all, an old boat with and old motor and though we would all like to be able to perform a simple task simply,it's is not always the case!

So it's off to home depot tomorrow for a hose clamp, then to work to use the pillar drill. When that's done i just need to work out the whole solenoid/relay thing to convert my old 3 wire to this 2 wire, however that works. I guess it's good to have a hobby!

Thanks for all of your advice.It's been a pleasure reading your words and learning of your fondness for redheads!

A local machine shop used to make band collars for me out of stainless steel strips, pop rivets, and 1/4" thick aluminum. Based on the price they charged me it was both easy and cheap for them.

 

[Frank Acampora]

Re: vote for the worst designed part.

It's fairly simple to convert 3 wire to 2 wire with relays. Terminals will be marked on the bottom and dependinng upon relays, schematic may be on the side.

The center wire on the 3 wire system is ground so just leave it to ground.

The relays are normally default to ground through terminal 87a so just don't use that terminal.

Now you have 4 terminals left

Use terminal 87 for power to the relay. You can use a single source with a circuit breaker for both relays. Use #10 wire
Use terminal 30 as power from the relay to the motor--one wire, either green or blue. Green is down, blue is up. again use #10 wire.
Use terminal 85 as signal power to the relay from the switch. 18 gauge wire is ok
Use terminal 86 as signal ground from the relay. again 18 gauge

Use a MOM 2 pole switch. Center terminal is 12V power to the switch. Not sure about a rocker switch but with a toggle switch: Bottom terminal is UP and goes to the relay hooked to the blue wire. Top terminal is DOWN and goes to the relay hooked to the green wire. Since the switch only uses a signal voltage to energise a coil inside the relay, no circuit breaker is necessary. ANYWAY: In the event of a short, the fine wire of the coil will act like a fuse; it is much thinner than the 18 gauge wire you will use to wire the switch. And if the tilt operates opposite the switch, just reverse the signal wires.

You can get the relays and sockets new, or you can get them in a U-Pull-It junkyard from some Fords, Chevys, and Buicks. Get a couple of extra because you will need to rewire the sockets. So, if you do go to the junkyard, leave at least 6 inches pigtails on the relay sockets.

 

[Frank Acampora]

Re: vote for the worst designed part.

I think I misunderstood your 3 wire to 2 wire. If you have a 3 wire motor and have replaced it with a 2 wire motor, THEN you use the 87a terminal to ground. Use # 10 wire because it will carry full motor current. The reason is because the motor is reversed by reversing voltage through the blue and green wires. So for up, 12 volts goes in the blue wire and is grounded through the green wire. For down, the voltage goes in the green wire and grounded through blue. BOTH wires are default to ground through the relay until one relay is energised.

Other wiring is the same basically. You can use the heavy cable from the original switch as signal cable but you will need to extend it unless you decide to mount the relays outside the engine, near the battery. I prefer to mount the relays inside the engine and pick up power from the battery side of the starter solenoid. Personally, I just get rid of the cable and run some #18 signal wire back. I usually use a jacketed pair like fire alarm cable or speaker wire. I pick up MOM switch voltage from the "B" terminal of the ignition switch.