I found this crack on my 98 ocean pro 175hp. it is between the cyl and the block on the top port side of the motor. nothing leaking from it and compression is good.
I scraped some of the paint away and am able to stick my fingernail in parts of the crack. Is it time for a new powerhead?. Or can this be fixed?
Wow - going by your description and the picture, never seen anything like that before, makes me think it may have been seriously overheated or that the casting was just very flawed from the factory somehow. In short though, how it's working OK god only knows but as far as I'm aware it's not repairable. There were other problems with that block from earlier years but it was a seam sort of issue (not a nasty crack but a seam splitting, which some places have figured out how to repair).
The fix for you (to my knowledge) would either be getting a powerhead (ie buy it straight up for ~$2200 aftermarket) or do it yourself and get a block (retail is $1000, although someplace like ebay there is a good used one for < $500 I'm sure) and swap your good parts in there..
If you get a block and do it yourself, plan on at a minimum a set of rings for ~$200 (say if you can find a good stock sized block used) and probably another $500 in random parts. OMC rods (really the rod caps) suck to line up, it's just a crappy design as far as anyone doing it outside of a factory - look it up online and you will see plenty of folks talking about it. They make a tool for like $500 that can help in some situations but does not necessarily. What many of us do (including me) is we get extra rods that are easier to line up, so you end up replacing a rod here and there when there's really nothing wrong with other than you can't get it lined up quite right.
Anyway - the good thing is it sounds like you have a running engine currently, best bet while you have time is to figure out the solution and buy it when it's cheap, so then you aren't in a jam paying retail for a fix later. Just my .02.
Jon
