So, after half a century as a sailor, I bought a real powerboat, an old Boston Whaler with a 2010 Mercury EFI.
I took a chance and bought the boat without ever taking it for a test cruise. And it wasn't even a deal; the price was fair but certainly not cheap.
I'd normally never do this .. spend that much money without a test .. but the Whaler will certainly float and the engine started and ran (in a bucket of water) just great, so that's most of the battle. I figured any other issues were small and I'm pretty handy, so I wasn't worried.
Plus, this was exactly what I was looking for and boats of any sort for sale are very hard to find in my part of the world right now. So I took a chance.
What I didn't look at was the steering, until I got it home. It's STIFF. I disconnected the steering cable and it's fine. But it takes two hands and a firm tug to move the bare motor.
It makes low speed maneuvering a pain and high speed is downright scary. Tug the wheel .. nothing .. tug .. nothing .. tug .. WOAH!
So I removed the grease nipple on the steering pivot and blew in air from my compressor, forcing ugly grease out the top. I noted that there already was a WHOLE lot of grease there already; I assume the previous owner had attempted to fix the problem himself already with a grease gun.
Then I forced some mild degreaser in and out the top a dozen times or so, dried it out with more compressed air and then pumped in my own grease. This was MAYBE better but certainly not good enough.
So the next step is to go whole hog and disassemble it and try and figure out why it's so stiff. Ucky dried out grease is my suspicion.
But this will clearly be a BIG job and I have no idea where to start. Should I buy the factory service manual or will the cheaper Seloc do as well or is there a magic YouTube video I haven't found yet or ... ?
Any thoughts appreciated.
Alan
I took a chance and bought the boat without ever taking it for a test cruise. And it wasn't even a deal; the price was fair but certainly not cheap.
I'd normally never do this .. spend that much money without a test .. but the Whaler will certainly float and the engine started and ran (in a bucket of water) just great, so that's most of the battle. I figured any other issues were small and I'm pretty handy, so I wasn't worried.
Plus, this was exactly what I was looking for and boats of any sort for sale are very hard to find in my part of the world right now. So I took a chance.
What I didn't look at was the steering, until I got it home. It's STIFF. I disconnected the steering cable and it's fine. But it takes two hands and a firm tug to move the bare motor.
It makes low speed maneuvering a pain and high speed is downright scary. Tug the wheel .. nothing .. tug .. nothing .. tug .. WOAH!
So I removed the grease nipple on the steering pivot and blew in air from my compressor, forcing ugly grease out the top. I noted that there already was a WHOLE lot of grease there already; I assume the previous owner had attempted to fix the problem himself already with a grease gun.
Then I forced some mild degreaser in and out the top a dozen times or so, dried it out with more compressed air and then pumped in my own grease. This was MAYBE better but certainly not good enough.
So the next step is to go whole hog and disassemble it and try and figure out why it's so stiff. Ucky dried out grease is my suspicion.
But this will clearly be a BIG job and I have no idea where to start. Should I buy the factory service manual or will the cheaper Seloc do as well or is there a magic YouTube video I haven't found yet or ... ?
Any thoughts appreciated.
Alan