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New to the Boating world!

skeet300

New member
Ok i bet you guys hear this alot somebody new comes in and starts asking for help! A little bit of background I'm mechanically inclined i've worked on atvs, motorcycles, and cars. I can read a parts manual and also a service manual. I have NEVER worked on a boat. Well i happened to come across a boat for a rather decent price figured i'd take a crack at fixing the couple small problems it seems to have and seeing if i couldn't have a nice boat for relatively cheap. For starters I need to get the Outdrive back on the boat. THe boat is a 1990 Maxum S2100 SC. It has a 4.3l Mercruise Alpha ONE on it. The outdrive was pulled for winterization and the guy decided to sell the boat rather than put it back in the water. He was told it had water on the pistons when he winterized it last september. THe water problem i believe i already have solved. My problem is i can't find any good resources on putting the Outdrive back on? I didn't know if anyone had a step by step procedure hiding somewhere for doing this? Any comments and help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance.
 
Put the shifter in forward, Lock the drive in forward, hang the new gasket and o-rings with rubber cement/bellows adhesive, put the input shaft through the gimbal bearing, slide the drive in minding the shift slide, and turn the prop CCW to line up the splines, and push her on. It may take you a few times if this is your first time.
 
First and foremost, borrow or rent an engine drive coupler alignment tool, and learn the procedure......... especially if the engine has been out and back in, or it the alignment has not been done recently.

Look at this search result.
Once there, invoke "search" just to the left of "images" at the top of your page.
That should lead you to a few web sites where this will be explained.


Also, and just an FYI... don't take any information given you by the previous owner as being accurate.
PO's tend to exaggerate, forget, miss items completely, or whatever.

Do your Due Diligence by replacing wear items..... I.E., drive shaft Bellows, shift cable bellows, Sea Water pump impeller, etc.

These items have a rather finite life span, and if/when not replaced routinely, the resulting damage will end up costing you much more than the initial replacement would have cost you.
Not to mention being stranded somewhere out on the water.

Due Diligence will pay you a nice dividend. :D

.
 
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well the previous owner is honestly clueless (he even admitted) to mechanical stuff he took it to a local shop that does not have a good reputation for being reliable. After getting a closer look i believe the gimbal bearing could be bad also?
 
Search YOUTUBE there are many videos there for what you want. If you can borrow or buy a pencil sized flexible camera it would allow you to look into each cylinder to see if there is any rust from neglect...you'll want to fix that before running it. While you are doing you due diligence inspect the engine mount bases, floor, stringers and transom for rot. Was it a fresh water or saltwater boat? How old are the exhaust manifolds and elbows? You might want to remove the rubber exhaust hoses from the Y pipe to see if the exhaust shutters are there and working. Lots of maintenance gets neglected by many boat owners for many reasons. Many bpat owners are like cars owners that just gas and go and unload it when something goes wrong.
 
Hey just wanted to say thanks for all the help right away. I'm assuming i should just go ahead and redo the gimbal bearing and the gimbal ring since i don't know the history of the boat?
 
Also to if i'm gonna get parts online is there someplace you would recommend that is easy to deal with and fair on pricing? I see alot of stuff on ebay but at the same time like always you never really know what your gonna get from ebay sellers?
 
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