Hello all. An introduction of a new owner and basically a book! OK 2 months ago I was minding my own business struggling to juggle all my hobbies (mostly gearhead stuff) and have not thought much about boating in years even though I was an avid sailor in the Puget Sound region for years in a previous life. I had owned a succession of sailboats up through a Hans Christian 43 and had run the inside passage to Alaska once (very doable in a kayak). Anyway remarried and wife has horses so no more long trips as needed to enjoy the great Northwest boating areas. Still driving by the water as one must around here it nags at you a bit. So about a month ago I get an email from my son who buys used boats to fix up and play with occasionally, "Dad check this boat out" and forwards a Grady White used Marlin 300 ad on craigslist. Initially I wasn't interested since I don't fish, don't like spending money on gas, liked figuring currents ,weather and enjoyed the challenges of using the wind and I liked having the whole boat devoted to living area, so I wasn't really interested. BUT a few days and a little research and a little imagination and a trip to the "boat in the weeds" and I finally started to realize maybe this might make a great boat to introduce the new crop (maybe the older crop also) of grandchildren to boating with. Spend money on gas to trade for time and instead of the leisurely 4 hour crossing of the straights it can be compressed into 40 minutes. a two week trip becomes a 4 day excursion. Maybe? Not ideal but even in retirement time is short so?? Anyway I like outboard power boats. I was a Johnson dealer and qualified mechanic back in the day and like the idea of pulling a motor to work on in the shop. So this one came with 2ea 2000 year 250 horse OX66 SW series salty and laying on a pallet and an additional 2ea 95 250 horse carburetor engine Yamaha's on the boat. The port boat engine supposedly has something wrong with it. A three axle aluminum trailer and a bunch of dated electronics. One other advantage to this boat was it was 7 miles away from my farm! It has been sitting 12 years (yech!). So over a month we went back and forth with me thinking ten thousand and the owner thirty but apparently no other offers over time on his end and I started building value in my head getting anxious to (like a prison guard marrying an inmate thinking they can save them :jaw ) I just couldn't wait to dig into those salty, corroded "OX's on the pallet"! I got permission from the owner to check compression on the engines and so my son and I did that and on the three (supposedly) running engines we had low 100's compression (remember sitting on their sides for years with no oiling, didn't mess with the "bad" engine yet). No soft spots we could find in the hull or deck so we struck a deal neither one of us was happy with. A couple hundred bucks got the boat delivered to the farm and we picked up the pallet motors ourselves and I brought them to my other shop. On the first OX I have dismantled the engine heads, water jacket cover and after a week of heat and penetrating oil have the lower unit dismantled down to the pinion gear (nut is removed but the gear is stuck?). Whew! I wish the 95 lower units would fit the OX's but I doubt they will. I will look today as I'll be at the farm cleaning 12 years of tree droppings from the boat! It all came apart much "easier" than looks would have had me believe! One broken bolt but I have the machine shop tools to fix that.
My philosophy on motors used in salt water: They need to come completely apart every two years!! Flushing? Yeah whatever, but really removing heads, dismantling lower units, occasionally pulling the power heads and basically removing every bolt and nut that's not internal to the actual engine bathed in oil and new seals and gaskets is the biggest payoff for a saltwater engine that's not used daily. Flushing does nothing, nada, useless for making it possible to remove frozen bolts from a salty engine thereby making almost impossible to be dismantled by a shop at reasonable rates. Angry mechanics and angry customers! Back in the fifties this is what "winterizing" meant according to Johnson. Later that went away and we squirted magic stuff in the carburetor and poured the gas tank fuel into my shop truck, and more new motors were sold. So wanting this to be "cheap", DIY fun, knowing my power units and confidence to care for them, and not planning to invest 4 times the price of the boat in new motors and having the skills for DIY, I like the idea of taking these back to parade rest and making repairs on these simple engines doable quickly whenever a problem arises. I was disappointed that so far I have not been able to see the rings through the removed bypass cover so I'm not done yet. May need to use the scope. I want to see that they are free in their landings (Joggle the flywheel back and forth slightly and observe piston moves while rings sit still proving "looseness" in the landings). Other than that and cleaning the jackets out the first power head is ready to clean, assemble and repaint. The lower unit is another story. There was no water in the gear case and the gears have a good pattern but the gearcase is really corroded in the "water area" with a 3/4 in hole in the side and more internally where it will be hard to weld up (water area only). I may just clean and paint and reassemble to use for now and keep my eyes open for a better cheap case. Remember,nothing wrong with the sealing or mechanics of the case and now maybe a half hour job to dismantle to move the parts. Many DIY tools machined and built for the job. The reassembly in the new case will be the time consumer for setting up shims,backlash etc.
Presently waiting for the Yamaha shop manual to arrive to figure out how to remove the pinion.
Remember only inshore use and 2 engines so shouldn't be "life threatening" using cobbled together motors.
I'm going to bust through getting the first OX done so no write ups or pictures for now. I plan on getting in the water with the other " good" engine for now and then take my time on the other OX eventually getting two good OX's on the boat and junking the other engines on ebay.
If anyone wants a write upon DIY this winter on the second OX I could do that.
I have spent hours and days on this site and appreciate all the posts complicated and trivial. Really learned a lot.
Electronics? I have not even turned any of it on. Bunch of screens in the overhead. Other than the autopilot that I only expect to hold a heading and maybe the radar, "if it doesn't easily work it gets tossed"! I've been everywhere I'm going 50 times in the past with a 7 foot draft boat and am quite comfortable with my paper charts.
My philosophy on motors used in salt water: They need to come completely apart every two years!! Flushing? Yeah whatever, but really removing heads, dismantling lower units, occasionally pulling the power heads and basically removing every bolt and nut that's not internal to the actual engine bathed in oil and new seals and gaskets is the biggest payoff for a saltwater engine that's not used daily. Flushing does nothing, nada, useless for making it possible to remove frozen bolts from a salty engine thereby making almost impossible to be dismantled by a shop at reasonable rates. Angry mechanics and angry customers! Back in the fifties this is what "winterizing" meant according to Johnson. Later that went away and we squirted magic stuff in the carburetor and poured the gas tank fuel into my shop truck, and more new motors were sold. So wanting this to be "cheap", DIY fun, knowing my power units and confidence to care for them, and not planning to invest 4 times the price of the boat in new motors and having the skills for DIY, I like the idea of taking these back to parade rest and making repairs on these simple engines doable quickly whenever a problem arises. I was disappointed that so far I have not been able to see the rings through the removed bypass cover so I'm not done yet. May need to use the scope. I want to see that they are free in their landings (Joggle the flywheel back and forth slightly and observe piston moves while rings sit still proving "looseness" in the landings). Other than that and cleaning the jackets out the first power head is ready to clean, assemble and repaint. The lower unit is another story. There was no water in the gear case and the gears have a good pattern but the gearcase is really corroded in the "water area" with a 3/4 in hole in the side and more internally where it will be hard to weld up (water area only). I may just clean and paint and reassemble to use for now and keep my eyes open for a better cheap case. Remember,nothing wrong with the sealing or mechanics of the case and now maybe a half hour job to dismantle to move the parts. Many DIY tools machined and built for the job. The reassembly in the new case will be the time consumer for setting up shims,backlash etc.
Presently waiting for the Yamaha shop manual to arrive to figure out how to remove the pinion.
Remember only inshore use and 2 engines so shouldn't be "life threatening" using cobbled together motors.
I'm going to bust through getting the first OX done so no write ups or pictures for now. I plan on getting in the water with the other " good" engine for now and then take my time on the other OX eventually getting two good OX's on the boat and junking the other engines on ebay.
If anyone wants a write upon DIY this winter on the second OX I could do that.
I have spent hours and days on this site and appreciate all the posts complicated and trivial. Really learned a lot.
Electronics? I have not even turned any of it on. Bunch of screens in the overhead. Other than the autopilot that I only expect to hold a heading and maybe the radar, "if it doesn't easily work it gets tossed"! I've been everywhere I'm going 50 times in the past with a 7 foot draft boat and am quite comfortable with my paper charts.