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Are new engines user-servicable and reliable to not ever need an engineer?

tat

New member
If I bought a brand new outboard, are they robust and reliable?

To explain, when I need a car I buy a new one and keep it until it conks out, so maybe up to 20 years. When i get a new one everything has changed so much. I never ever wanted electric windows because it was just something more to go wrong, and it did, and it was electronics in the door and what hassle and expense. Manual winding windows were great. I went a ride in a newer car than mine and things had changed even more, now there was even more electronics.....the car suddenly sounded an alarm and would only allow a very low speed and said take it to your nearest dealer, miles away, and it was hooked up to a diagnosis computer which electronically recallibrated the car management control unit (nothing actually wrong), cost a small fortune. I thought how much I was going to hate it when I needed a new car. Usually i never bother with a garage service, I do the basics myself, but computer electronic stuff puts it out of my ability and so I then have to be at their mercy and get charged all the time. What a dread. But what choice do we get. I think it even forces you to have the service at the dealer after so many miles of time. It's extortion.

Now i don't want to buy a brand new outboard and it be stuffed with electronics and management control this and that and have to go to a dealer. I just want to buy a motor, pay my money and that is it, I'll do the servicing, basic stuff, plugs, oil, etc. But will I be able to do this? What are new outboards like? And if they are stuffed with electronics, will it not matter because they are reliable and need little maintenance........or will I be forever at the annual mercy of the garage? Can I just buy a new one and get on with living?
 
Things have changed as you note in the auto and in the outboard world....the outboards are computer driven 4 cycles....you can change your oil and plugs and lower unit oil as maintenance items but are at the mercy of the garage on most trouble shooting...actually the dealer is at the mercy of the computer and most of the time he hooks the system to the motor and then the motor manufacturer hooks up and tells the local tech what to do...and you can expect to pay accordingly..expensive...an oil change and filters changed and lower unit oil change will run 300 bucks for example if you have them done..suck some ethanol crud into the engine and expect 300+ bucks..the reliability and maintenance cost of a 4 cycle are questioned by a lot of experienced engine techs...i dont buy that completely...i do know that it pays to be very careful with the fuel you use and the oil changes etc..i swap out ignition batteries every three years but i have always done that even with the 2 cycles...it may be more critical on the newer motors to have a good battery and good connections because of the computer etc...i dont know that but take no chances..the only thing hooked to my ignition battery other than the motor is a bilge pump...everything else goes on a 2nd battery..that 2nd battery is not charged by the engine...it is charged with shore power at night...keep it simple...

having said all that you are still at the mercy of the manufacturer on problems..no way out of that unless you want to throw parts in at random...but hopefully like the new cars if taken care of they will not break as often...just expensive as hell when they do..its a world we live in today..
 
Thanks for that papyson.......not what i wished to hear, but needed the truth. I have a yamaha dt 175 trail bike, 1974. It works perfectly all the time, totally reliable, kicks up every time, even after a year or more just sat there. There have been little things that went wrong, a carb seal, gear selector spacer, new condenser and points, but all very easy to do by an ordinary bloke. That was 40 years ago that state of things. I really have half a mind to have a go at this 1985 outboard, simply because of the no electronics and being held to ransom. I was talking with the mechanic and it just went up and up and up and up by the second....two hundred...four hundred.....six....seven...nine....two thousand five hundred......three thousand......three thousand two seven five, maybe more......then set up, then service......... Good God! Then he showed me motors which cost £20k!

Maybe I should just fix some wooden paddles to the dt 175 rear wheel.

It just feels like getting a new engine is getting into a money pit where you are in for a penny which makes you in for a pound.

Do you think I could repair the old engine? Are they tricky in needing special tools like the swiveling spanner a plumber uses for taps and the back of sinks.

I have had the engineer go over it to tell what is wrong and what parts are needed. I have a workshop. And have the boat at a boatyard where there is some help/advice. There is a part of me really wants to have a crack at it, just for the enjoyment of having a go, even if I fail. I'd love to have that engine running and pushing the boat, I reckon it is like the dt 175, a classic outboard from a classic age of technology. What do you reckon?
 
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have a go at it....lot of people do..one thing is for sure...by the time you get er done you will know the motor well enough to not need help from anyone...we have people on here that can answer your questions during the rebuild...i am not one of them...so if you decide to go that route people are here..
 
Thanks papyson for the encouragement, it will be a nice winter project for me. I've had a cast about the forum and see there are repair manuals, too. I've made my mind up. and it is the right decision, I know it.
 
I've got the engine back home after the engineer's assesssment, which I am very pleased with, and the price which I felt was reasonable.


I have had my own investigation. just a preliminary hour. What seems to have happened is that the engine was left in the water and the sacrificial anode corroded and fell away, and then this led to corrosion of the lowermount bracket (the clamp with the rubbers just bellow the water line), due to electrical corrosion between the aluminium alloy bracket and the stainless steel bolt which held it together, causing one side of the bracket to fail, to break off one side. Consequently the engine was thus pushed off center by the other side which remained in tact, though itself corrorded much around the aluminium alloy clamp and the steel bolts. Hence the shift rod was off-center, off vertical.


The guy who had it, now passed away, had been a commercial pilot. Maybe he was used to control levers which had electronics, so he didn't have a feel for controls which were purely mechanical....when he pushed the shift rod down using the remote, he did not do it with mechanical feeling, to help the gears to enmesh, he just slammed the lever and expected it to happen, and using force to do so. But because the shift rod was not vertical, it was to the side, because one side of the lower clamp had broken away, the shift merely bent/buckled, not being of a suficient guage of rod to stand that off-centeredness and such force. Thus the shift rod was in effect too short to engage the gears, and this is where the story ended, except for a last-ditch attempt by putting pliers or mole grips on the square shift bar at the cable connection end. Then it was given up on and left to stand until now.


I could be wrong about this sequence of events, of course, but it is interesting to try and discover what happened. But for sure the shift rod has bent, and apart for this everything is absolutely superb. Apparently the engine has only done 500 hours, and I have no reason to doubt this information.


The section of the shift rod which goes down into the gearbox is something I can straighten. I think the top section may be bent, which seems a bigger problem. But this is all is wrong with it. It looks fabtastic.


I have to take adavntage of the little bit of good weather left tothe paint things on the boat, but later when the bad weather comes I will get cracking with sorting this engine in winter weeks. Please, if you can help me during that time then I would welcome your help. I can hardly wait to get started. Please look out for my post in a few weeks, and any help anyone can offer I of course will be very thankful for. I'll learn how to post pictures so that will make it all better to communicate. Should be fun. Cheers.
 
Just thought I'd update this thread with some good news, and I think, I hope, that it will be plain sailing from this point, fingers crossed, but basically I have simply bent the rods back into line, simple as that.


Initially I studied the job. I could see the shiftrod end linked to a pin and cotterpin, but there was no way to it, and any sockets I had were not slimline enough. There was just no way, so at this point I started thinking in another way....bending the rods back to shape. Naturally I had thought of this at the very beginning, but dismissed it quickly because it was quite twisted, the lower shaft And the upper shaft was clearly bent, the nut to one side and tilted, but there seemed no way to get into the shaft to bend it as only about 3mm of the end could be got to.


Well, I very carefully bent the lower shaft to shape (four bends, each in three planes). I have a feel for this work as it is my business (jewellery), and with some aluminium soft jaws in the vice I managed to get the grip I needed and the leverage. It looked as good as new, and I felt no weakening or fractures. Good, so cup of tea.


Next, I lifted the engine to hang over a door so that the job was comfortable and at eyelevel. I examined everything with a x10 loupe to get very familiar with the area. I decided that the only possible way would be to fit a piece of piping on the end of the shaft and see if I could bend it...but I knew in my heart that there wasn't really enough room to get any leverage or the distance of overbend necessary.


Still, I hunted the workshop for any kind of pipe about the diameter, but nothing at all. In final desperation I looked at my socket set and put a socket on the extention piece, and then the tommy bar wrench on that, and it fit on the end of the shift shaft long nut like a dream, a really good solid and firm fit, not any play at all, and all the way to the bottom of the socket. Things were different now. I just knew. It was all there. I took a deep and steady breath and with all the skill and feeling i could muster I executed one firm and steady bend and then that was it. Perfect.


Now I just need a bracket and anode. Hopefully that will be it. It was a bit of a journey, but that is how it is sometimes, you have to go round the houses.


So what a good do. Just thought I'd let you know how it turned out in the end.
 
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