Nuther outboard favor job

[rmack898]

I have officially been out of the boat business for a little over a year now but my friends refuse to accept that fact. Big Chris called me and said that he thought his motor had blown. I went over the next day to check it out and there was no tools needed to confirm that his motor had indeed blown up.

I gave Chris all the options to get him back on the water and he decided to go with a re-manufactured power head. I called a reputable re-builder to order a power head. For those unfamiliar with the term, a power heard is basically a long block engine. The re-builder did not have not in stock ready to ship but they said that they had several good cores and could have one built and to my door in a week, I was skeptical but placed the order. Four days later a truck shows up with a fresh power head, what a pleasant surprise.

Now Chris is a top shelf professional automotive wrench, and he wanted to help, but if Chris was going to help the job would have taken 3 times as long, so I didn't tell Chris that the power head arrived and I went at it solo.

So here's how I got Chris back on the water.

1. The bonnet and side covers off the motor.

2. There are 8 bolts and 1 stud per side and 1 stud in the rear center that hold the power head to the tower section of the motor.

3. 2 control cables, 3 wire harnesses, 1 fuel line,1 oil line, and 2 battery cables are all that need to be disconnected and tucked out of the way. then the bolt that connects the shift shaft to the shift linkage needs to come out. On the older motors with a one piece pan under the power head, getting the shift shat bolt out was a bitch but with the newer style clamshell side covers it's a piece of cake.

4. Install the lifting ring on the flywheel

5. Lifting the power head off the tower section. The tower section is what we call the part of the motor between the power head and the lower unit.

[rmack898]

When I went to lift the power head off the tower, the back side started to lift but the front side did not want to budge. I double checked several times to make sure that I did not miss a mounting bolt, but I had them all out and accounted for. At this point when you have the joint partially separated, there is the temptation to put something in the open part of the joint and pry but that will certainly damage the gasket surface and it will leak when it goes back together. In this case one of the 5/16"x1" studs in the front of the motor was holding it together with salt. I just kept a lot of lifting pressure on it and rocked it until it broke loose, this took about and hour of working it back and forth.

6. Here is the offending 5/16" stud covered in rock hard salt deposits.

7. Persistence and not wanting to break anything paid off and I was able to lift the power head off the tower section.

8, This is a salt encrusted bolt hole in the tower section, because it was a bolt I was able to turn the bolt out of the salt "threads".

9. This is the salt in the hole for the stud that caused me all the trouble. It had salt threads just like the other hole but since it was a stud, I had to work it to rip the stud out of the salts grip.

10. Once off, I put the 2 power heads side by side to make it easy to transfer all of the components from one to the other.

[Lu47Dan]

Mack, nice job. I would not want to tackle that job at all.
Dan.

[rmack898]

I said that I didn't need any tools to determine that this engine was blown, while it did not have any gaping holes in the block, there would have been if we ran it just a little bit longer.

11. With the reed boxes off you can get a good look at the bottom end of the engine. Here you can see a good rod on the crank.

12. Here is the offending cylinder, you can barely see the rod end through all of the busted up metal.

13. Here is the new power head all dressed out and ready to install.

14. This is the top of the tower section all cleaned up and ready for the new power head. While I had it apart, I found that the upper motor mounts in the tower were broken. This canted the whole motor backwards that created negative trim even when Chris had the motor trimmed all the way up. This was the cause of the difficult steering that Chris complained about ever since he bought the boat. It was an easy fix with the power head removed.

15. Setting the power head down is pretty easy. I just jack it up real high and crack the valve on the hoist just enough for it to creep down real slow while have 2 hands to guide it all together. Chewy is my safety supervisor.

[rmack898]

This whole job took me just about 8 hours over 2 days. Since I wasn't answering the phone when I saw it was Chris calling he finally came over just as I was about all done. He was pissed that I didn't let him help and all I had left was hooking up the fuel line and putting the covers back on so I told Chris that he could do that while I enjoyed a beverage. While hooking up the fuel line to the VRO pump, Chris broke the plastic nipple off the pump and it cost him $317 for a new pump. He wasn't a happy camper at the time but laughs about it now. I figure payback for this job should keep me from having to work on Islay's car for next year

16. Big Chris, minutes before he breaks the VRO pump.

[milomilo]

rmack898:

Wish you lived next door to me. I have a 90hp Force that started to knock just as I was coming in to the dock this spring. I'm not looking forward to taking the power head off to see what the problem is. I rebuilt the motor 8 years ago and changed from the stock pistons to Weisco pistons with a different top ring angle on advise from the local dealer. Also had the cyinders bored out. Lower bearings all checked out good at the time but now I think maybe they may have been to worn. It has ran better than new until this spring.

I moved here to WY from the west coast 4 years ago and the elevation here is 4,000 feet versus sea level there. Seemed to run fine here with no adjustments to the carbs. Hope the pistons are still good. Think I will have the carbs adjusted, after the rebuild, for this altitude to be sure it isnn't running too lean at thsi altitude.

Got any suggestions forthsi motor to help me out during the rebuild?

[rmack898]

I hate to say it but almost every outboard I have seen with Wiseco's has seen an early failure. They make great pistons for dirt bikes but when it comes to outboards, I'm partial to OEM slugs. If it's not making too much noise you might be able to nurse it through the rest of the season on a heavy oil mix. I would fatten the main jets by .002-.003" just to make sure it doesn't go lean.

If you're serous about another rebuild, I would send the block to Mar-Fab http://www.mar-fab.com/our-full-line.html or just get a reman power head.

[Vernon]

Hey Mac,
Sounds like Chris paid 317.00. But if he came early may have cost a boat load more . Best to do work alone when you know what your doing "GREAT JOB" Vernon

[Pyro J]

Mac 8 hours???? I do believe you've done it a time or two... Cool stuff.

Were you able to figure out what went wrong on the engine or was it just a part failure?

obligatory pic of dog

[jamesemery728]

rmack, I like the rubber tire mod to your cherry picker. Does it roll a lot easier with the 4 rubber tires on the front?