Boat engine removal, rebuild, refitting and first start

[LPGC]

I'll get around to doing a full thread on this but for now I'll just post this video of the engine running again

https://youtu.be/KcQeuvO9tbU

[Gilbertd]

Bugger, beat me to it. My engine is planned to go in at the end of next week. It's been sitting on a pallet for months now but needed the ability to lift it up high enough to get it in. Local farmer is going the clog the road between the farm and my house with his Telehandler.....

[LPGC]

Bugger, beat me to it. My engine is planned to go in at the end of next week. It's been sitting on a pallet for months now but needed the ability to lift it up high enough to get it in. Local farmer is going the clog the road between the farm and my house with his Telehandler.....

Look forward to seeing yours go in too mate.

Like I said before, you could borrow the crane I modified if you want to come and collect it?

You might also want to borrow the engine alignment tool...

[Gilbertd]

You might also want to borrow the engine alignment tool...

Is it the same as the Mercruiser?

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[LPGC]

I haven't checked the details you sent against the details of the tool I bought but when I bought it the description said it was compatible with Mercruiser and OMC, I believe it will be correct. It's a heavy duty bit of kit.

You're probably gonna tell me you've made or had made an alignment tool?

TBH I'm not sure they do much more than a basic check. The engine is going to move on it's mounts when it's under load anyway and I found mine had wear on the coupler splines and/or leg input shaft splines. And I reckon it's possible to align them at least to some extent like aiming a shotgun / make sure the tool sticks out of the outside transom bits close to the middle.

[Gilbertd]

Today is the day. Spoke to the local farmer and his telehandler isn't road legal so he can't drive it to mine. So, the engine is now in my little trailer and the boat is all ready to move.

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Engine bay is all cleaned out and ready to accept the engine

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The plan is, as soon as my neighbour gets back from a little job this morning, tow the little trailer the couple of miles up to the farm and drop that off. Then come back and hitch up the boat and take that there. All we need do then is attach the chain hoist to the telehandler, lift the engine out of the trailer, move the little trailer out of the way, reverse the boat under the dangling engine and lower it in. What can possibly go wrong.....

With the couple of bolts in the rear engine mounts (the two round holes either side of the centre) and the coach screws holding the front mounts down, I can then take it back home and start reassembling the outdrive (assuming the alignment is correct) and bolt up all the ancilliaries on the engine. With a bit of luck, it'll be ready to fire it up sometime tomorrow.

[LPGC]

Great stuff Gilbert, hope it goes well.

[Gilbertd]

It's in and it runs!! Took the engine up to the farm then came back for the boat. Attached the chain hoist to the forks on the telehandler and lifted the engine out of the trailer, got it up in the air and then reversed the boat under the dangling engine. Didn't get and pictures or video unfortunately as there was only 3 of us, me in the boat to guide the engine into place, one on the chain winch and one in the telehandler. After a couple of false starts it was in. The Mercruiser rear engine mounts have a thick fibre washer bonded to the transom unit but the bonding let go so it fell into the bilges. After about 3 goes, got the washer in place and the bolts in. As the bolts had been seized in place when I was taking the old ones out, they were slobbered in grease before putting them in which caused another delay while I fished the bolt out of the bilges after it slipped out of my fingers when trying to pt it in. But, once the bolts were in and the threads started, bolted the front mounts down and called it a day at the farm.

Back home I torqued the rear bolts down and checked the alignment. I'd had a flash of inspiration and realised I had a glass fibre telescopic fishing pole that I'd bought once to use for something else. Measured it and found that one section was the exact correct size to go into the bit on the flywheel and two sections later it was the correct size for the gimbal bearing. Checked the alignment and the front of the engine was fractionally off centre but with a lump of 4x4 across the back of the boat, a ratchet strap on the front hook to take the weight and a club hammer, tapped the mount across slightly and the alignment looks perfect.

Then came the process of bolting the remaining ancillaries, and the steering at the back that had taken off for access, back on. Hardest was the exhaust manifolds as they are bloody heavy and awkward and unlike your boat where it is open at either side, on mine the engine sits inside a 'box' with walls on either side making access difficult. On one side, after putting the exhaust manifold on, I then found I've got to take the hose from the bottom off to fit the front spark plug. On the other side I fitted the plugs first only to find the manifold was sitting on them risking breaking them off. On more than one occasion I found myself saying, "what idiot designed this?" to myself. It doesn't surprise me that boat owners don't maintain their engines, plugs are a real pain to get to and you need a shallow bowl and very long arms to do an oil change.

Once I'd got everything bolted up, I nicked the petrol can the missus keeps for her lawnmower (she once complained that my lines on the lawn weren't straight enough so has cut the grass herself ever since) and put a short hose into that from the fuel pump. As the outdrive isn't back on yet, I jammed a hosepipe into the hole that it feeds into and waited until water was coming out of one of the hoses to an exhaust manifold, refitted that and waited until it was coming out of where the exhaust would go if it was on and spun the engine over. Oil pressure came up nicely but the best it could manage was a few pops out of the exhaust and flames out of the carb. Grabbed my neighbour so one of us can spin the engine over while the other watched the timing light. Instead of being 10 degrees BTDC, it was nearer 50 degrees BTDC. Tweaked the distributor and got it spot on but it still wouldn't start. Checked all the HT leads were correct and decided it must be 180 degrees out. Swapped the HT leads around on the distributor cap, turned the starter switch and it burst into life and settled to a nice even idle sounding absolutely beautiful.

Called it a day and cracked open a beer.

Went out there this morning to sort out the tools that had been left strewn around everywhere and noticed the bilges were full of ATF so it looks like there's a power steering leak somewhere but I'll need the engine running again to find that. Figured I might as well start fitting the outdrive only to find there's a gasket between the two bits which was split and I didn't have one, so ordered a gasket and O ring set and the rest will have to wait until that arrives.

[LPGC]

Well done

The Volvo SX rear mounts have a bush top and bottm of the transom unit, a bolt goes through from the underside (protrudes upward for the marine bellhsouning to mount on) but there is a lock/tensioning nut (preloads the bushing) and a square washer on top that the nut that bellhousing sits on, if the square washer isn't seated properly in the bellhousing it will raise that corner of the engine and bellhousing. First time I lowered my engine into position it seemed raised more at one side rear than the other, I expected I hadn't got it seated properly on the square washer but then found I could still rock the engine and the bolt head (pointing down) had some clearance between it and the underside bushing.. The problem was that when removing the engine I assumed the bolts hadn't turned, but they must have turned and slackened off from the preload nut. I had to re-attach the crane and lift the engine again to sort it. I know the Merc setup is different.

Nice one with the fishing pole.

The Ford heads have plugs pointing forward (or rearward depending on which cylinder bank, the heads are interchangeable between banks)... which means there is little clearance between the plugs and marine exhaust manifold. When I removed plugs last year I had a different 5/8 plug socket with hex (to get a 3/4mm spanner on) at the socket end. I couldn't get in with a extension or plug spanner but managed to use an open end 3/4 spanner to slacken them off then undid them by hand. This year I couldn't find the same socket, bought 2 more different length sockets both with 3/4 hex but still couldn't get in with a spanner or 3/8 universal joint on extension. In the end I cut up one of the plug sockets, cut up a 1/4 drive 12mm socket and welded them together so I could get in with a 1/4 universal joint and extension... This works fine but what a pita just to be able to change spark plugs.

My boat doesn't have the wood panels at each side of the engine but it does have a bit of overhang over the rear of the engine (pain to access transom mount stuff like steering, trim/tilt, etc with the trim and/or engine fitted). I had to remove a lot of interior panelling/trim before I could pull the engine, again a pita because some of that panelling extended between interior side panel trim stuff. Still got to refit all that stuff

Anicillaries on mine were a pita lol. I took loads of pics during removal but none clearly showed how the alternator or PAS pump were mounted, I was looking for mointing points to the block but it turned out the alternator bracket fixes to the front of the water pump... Heh, I had already bought new stainless bolts for the wp and fitted it but had to remove some bolts and fit longer bolts to attach the brackets.

Used a little fuel pump bought from Amazon to pump half the fuel out of the tank (I left it nearly full of E5 super last summer before removing the engine). The first 4 pints I pumped into a pyrex jug contained water and were cloudy (especially the first pint), looking at the stuff in the jug reminded me of those lava lamps in the 70's, can clearly see a fluid (petrol) floating on another fluid (ethanol water mix). I used the first couple of gallons I pumped out to help start a bonfire, when it ran clear I parked my car beside the boat and pumped half the tank into my car tank. I might have pumped more fuel out of the boat but the pump loses prime with the boat tank at the lower level (missus was hoping I'd pump some into her car lol).

Had no problems with setting timing so it will run but I watched the rockers to make sure it wasn't 180degrees out, checked the timing mark was accurate using a magnetic dial gauge on #1 piston before fitting the heads and there was a handy mark on the distributor, I still need to check timing with the strobe but don't expect it to be far out. Static timing is supposed to be 10deg but I might set it to 12 because we run higher octane than they were designed for.

Filled the engine with oil ages ago before fitting it so I could run the oil pump (using the drill) to check oil pressure by reading the resistance across the new sender unit and to check hydraulic lifters were bleeding up and that oil came up the pushrods, ended up changing hydraulic lifters and pushrods. But when testing oil pressure I (at first) forgot to attach the new oil pressure sender so pumped an unknown amount of oil out onto the concrete, which messed up my measurements. Then found the oil level on the dipstick was too high reading way over the hashed 'safe' area on the stick. Pumped 3 pints of oil out before the level dropped into the hashed area. Then second-guessed myself on how much oil I must have originally put in and second-guessed the accuracy of the dipstick. The only way to be sure was to pump all the oil out and refill lol, so the other day I pumped all the oil out, pumped 9 pints out. When I refill with oil I will make sure I know exactly how much I've put in and work out if the stick is accurate or not.

When I bought this boat the owner sent me a video of a guy from a marina showing how to start the engine, not just turn the key to start, turn the key to the run position then flick the cabin lights switch then turn the key to start or it wouldn't crank/start. I expected the marina had rigged some sort of simple immobiliser. After refitting the engine I had problems with it not cranking even after flicking the switch so ran some tests of my own. 8 Volts on the purple wire at the engine after turning the key on rising to 9V after flicking the switch but still not enough to engage the start solenoid when the key was turned. After more diagnostics I didn't find any immobiliser stuff but still found the problem, there was a voltage drop across the dead man switch (that ignition power runs through), so I simply disabled the dead man switch by bypassing it on the purple wire circuit.

None of the dash gauges worked before but I'm hoping I fixed all of them, just had to pull the needles off and refit in the correct position. I reckon they ended up in the wrong position on their shafts because at some point the gauge panel got reverse polarity, it is a car style cluster (as opposed to separate gauges) and isn't made anymore so if I had to replace it I'd need to spend £500 on a commercially made aftermarket replacement or make my own panel and put my own gauges in it... so I'm glad I seem to have fixed it. Also had to replace the fuel level sender in the tank, oil pressure sender and oil pressure warning switch.

I had to do a bit of LPG related work today (we usually have a drive out somewhere on a Sunday), the weather was @!##, so after LPG work I decided there wasn't much point having a drive out and I might as well do some more work on the boat. I regreased the drive universal joints (my UJ's have grease nipples, I know some are sealed UJ's) and refitted the drive on Friday evening, that was hard work, then I left the drive oil draining a couple of days. Already knew the drive oil seemed OK because I slackened the drain plug weeks ago but I wanted to change the fluid anyway, used some 75/90 from Rock Oil which is what Repower marine advise/sell for these drives (including your drive I believe), used some 'Evinrude / Johnson Triple Guard grease' on the drive input shaft splines (into the coupler) and around the mating area of the leg into the transom swivel (probably the thickest and most waterproof grease I've ever seen and as advised on a boat forum). A little £7 Good Year pump to pump the fluid in through the bottom drain hole as apparently we shouldn''t refill the drives from the top/dipstick hole. Last thing I did today was fit the prop, happy at what I got done today and it would now actually work on the water but without the rear trim etc fitted. I don't know whether to take it to the river for testing before refitting the trim (so easy access around the engine etc) or get it 'family ready' and refit the trim before taking it. Still need to tidy up wiring hanging down under the steering wheel.

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[Gilbertd]

This is how the Mercruiser rear engine mount is arranged

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The Nyloc nuts on the bottom fit into slots so they can't turn and I had already been advised to put a bit of tape over the slot to stop them falling out, so that bit was OK. The new washers, which are reinforced rubber rather than fibre like the original ones and I'd stuck them on with Superglue Gel which normally sticks anything to anything, but it didn't. As soon as the engine was lowered into place and wiggled around a bit to get it lined up so the bolt could go in, the glue let go and the washer fell out. What is different on the newer system is that instead of the double wound washer, the inner of the bushes are longer and there is just a stainless steel washer in its place. As that isn't as tall is the wound one, the engine was sitting on the large rubber/fibre washer instead of the washer. I suspect with the old system, it wouldn't be a problem.

[Gilbertd]

This is what mine looks like now it is in. As you can see, there's panel either side of the engine making access awkward and the rear 'bodywork' over the top which doesn't help either.

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Found the source of the ATF leak. The return from the steering ram to the pump goes through a cooler in the water intake and the end of one of the hoses was split. Unfortunately it is at the back of the engine so really fun to get to, especially as I needed one hand to hold the hose, one to hold the Stanley knife and a third hand to hold a torch as leaning over the engine meant I was blocking all of the light. Unfortunately, I wasn't born with 3 hands so had to struggle. Chopped the end off the hose, refitted it and filled the reservoir. I'll check it tomorrow and see if the level has dropped.

[LPGC]

Nice one finding the ATF leak, at least a relatively simple fix access problems aside.

Your engine bay is tighter than mine, though mine does have some panels beside the rear half of the bay when the rear trim is fitted and more bodywork above the rear.

I've just found a problem I thought I had fixed, the drive/rams still fall under their own weight over time and will fall faster when being pushed by the engine. No external hydraulic fluid leaks so the problem is either inside the rams (or just one ram) or inside the pump. I can easily buy a Volvo SX trim pump rebuild kit but the rams are OMC Cobra and I haven't seen a rebuild kit for them. The rams look in decent condition and the pump works but squeels when it has pushed the rams to one extreme or the other, I would have expected some pressure relief valve to open inside the pump and the motor to slow due to pushing higher pressure when the rams reach an extreme (like with most other hydraulic stuff) but I wouldn't expect it to squeel.. Considering all these points, and the fact that the pump is very difficult to access when the trim is installed, I think I should rebuild the pump before refitting the boat trim as the rams are easily accessible any time and I can work on those after refiting the trim.

These are Volvo SX rear engine mounts (which themselves bolt to the internal rear transom mounted outdrive components) but what you don't get from the pic (and what nobody tells you) is that the square washers are threaded on the bolt and you can't access the starboard side bolt head from underneath with the engine fitted. I didn't know when I undid the nyloc nuts that I turned the bolt which slackened the square washer, then when I re-installed the engine first time there was loads of slack on the underside bush and I could rock the engine, no chance of correcting it without lifting the engine again because I couldn't get on the bolt head.

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Are you using running in oil? Straight 30W is advised by marinas for mine (which has flat tappet hydraulic cam as opposed to roller cam). I got a headache looking into what oil to run in general use and what to use for running the new pistons and rings in, now I have it filled with Halfords classic 20/50 and I plan on changing it for the same after running it for a few hours but I'll probably switch to a synthetic multigrade when I think the rings are seated.

[Gilbertd]

It seems that boat engine rear mounts are a pain no matter who made it. I've filled mine with cheapo 15W-40 mineral oil and will change it once it's had some running. The Mercruiser stuff is straight SAE 30 but the manual does say if you can't get that you can run 15W-40 but they still recommend mineral oil. Not sure of the reason for that unless that was what was current at the time it was built in much the same way as Land Rover recommend Ethylene Glycol antifreeze in a GEMS Range River but OAT in a Thor because when the GEMS was built OAT didn't exist? I would have thought a synthetic oil would be better on something that is going to be running at a sustained constant revs. For the outdrive I spent ages looking through different sites before finding one that tells me the Mercruiser oil (at £30 a litre) is mineral EP90 GL-4 which I can get from Euro Car Parts for £25 for 5 litres, so it will be getting that once Repower Marine send me the gasket/O ring set so I can refit it.

[LPGC]

I agree with all your points. It soon gets complicated with experts contradicting each other if you look much deeper into what oil to use for a car engine in a boat. Stuff about how (say) 10/40 is actually 10W with thickeners that bring it up to 40W until the extra heat in a boat engine (because there's no oil cooler, no air flowing past the sump and the engine is more likely to be driven flat out for longer periods) causes the thickeners to 'sheer' from the base oil and you end up effectively running 10W. Loads of probably outdated stuff. Modern synthetics probably don't sheer as easily as mineral oil (and we would change it regularly anyway) but synthetics probably have a lot more detergents in them which could cause any crud in an engine that's been run on mineral to break away and cause a problem, but our engines are rebuilt so won't have any crud. But still detergents are apparently a bad thing for running in and running synthetic during running in can cause cylinder wall glazing. There are people saying they've run straight 30W oil for years no problem, they make the point that a straight oil can't sheer, but they don't mention detergents, and we know that a 30W is going to be thinner anyway when it's hot, where-as if we run 10/40 it's going to be the equivalent of 40W when hot if we change it often enough (so less shearing even if it has the potential to sheer), and again we want the detergents to prevent the 60's problem of oilways crudding up. Then people say you don't need the 10W aspect because you won't be doing much boating when it's freezing lol.

For the outdrive I bought 75W90 from Rock Oil, it is the same stuff Repower lists for my drive. The stuff I drained out was blue, apparently the proper (expensive) Merc stuff you mentioned but not the correct stuff for my drive and (apparently again) could cause problems with cone clutch slippage in my drive.

I still haven't sorted the rams falling issue I mentioned last post. The problem could be in the rams or in the pump. After much research I ended up buying what I know should be the correct seal kits for my rams but I still haven't sourced any replacement seals for the pump. Like I said before it would make most sense to rebuild the pump because the pump is inaccessible after I've refitted the rear trim. I need pump seal kit 3854397 but it's not available anywhere. In theory the O rings in the seal kit I need are available individually... I found a diagram of my pump with diagram numbers which I could look up using a table below the diagram to find actual part numbers, from that I made a list of all the individual O ring parts numbers in 3854397, then I found out that the only supplier I could find selling the O rings individually is in the US and won't ship outside the US. I may have a way around that (ship to my son's wife's aunt who is in the US who could forward them on to me, ahem Edward and Leah ), but I haven't mentioned this to them yet. Or instead I might just buy a couple of packs of assorted O rings, strip my pump down, if I find any problem with an O ring just replace that O ring with the closest size from my assorted O rings.

Only thing I've done on the boat today is grease the gimble bearing (exterior transom stuff has a nipple on the exterior so can be done with the drive fitted), jack each of the 4 trailer wheels off the floor, check play (all good), spin them to listen to the bearings (all good) and grease them with the gun through the grease nipple. Instead of the usual wheel bearing cap there's a spring loaded automatic greaser that continually tries to push grease into the bearings, I don't know if it's the automatic greasers or maintenance that's kept the wheel bearings in apparently good condition but I would expect it's the automatic greasers.

You do quite a bit with trailers, I don't have a spare wheel, they are 13 inch 5 stud 4.5" PCD with 175/80/D13 tyres. I think I could buy a wheel from a guy in Ireland that sells them but maybe you know of somewhere more local? The guy in Ireland lists them on Ebay and I think he mentioned they are used on mobile road sign trailers.

On the subject of oil, funny one today, my daughter (who's at college) is doing a work placement in Barnsley, I had to pick her up (and let her drive home as she's learning to drive). While I was waiting a bloke approached me and asked if I was a mechanic (no idea what gave him that impression lol). I said "I am actually". He asked me to have a quick look at his car just down the road which was kicking out loads of smoke from the exhaust. Have you put any diesel in the petrol tank? No. Have you recently topped the oil up? Yes. How much oil did you put in? Well it was showing empty on the dipstick so I filled it. Filled it with how much though? 5 Litres, in his 1.6 Astra when it was showing low (not completely empty) on the stick, it was now well above the full level on the stick lol.

[Gilbertd]

The only puzzle I have at the moment is a small pipe dangling down at the front of the outdrive. I think it is for the speedo but have no idea where it should go and the manual doesn't even mention it..... For your spare wheel, try giving FS Trailers in Huntingdon a call (https://www.fstrailers.co.uk/parts-accessories/) and speak to Paul or Josh. That is where I hire trailers from but they carry a huge amount of spares and are agents for Brian James and Erde trailers. Their site doesn't list a 5 x 4.5" PCD but I'm pretty sure they will be able to get one for you.

I'm ignoring my trailer for the moment. When I picked the boat up, the brake cables were seized and the brake shoes worn down to nothing so, to get it home, I took the shoes out and relied on the brakes on the car. Taking it to the farm on Friday I noticed one side was noisy so I think the brake lever has come adrift inside and is touching the inside of the drum. At some point I'm going to have to get a set of shoes and a pair of cables (back to see Paul and Josh...).

[LPGC]

Front of the outdrive internal or external? There's a pipe dangling from what would be the bell housing on a car on mine, it could be some sort of drain for the bellhousing but if so it would be pointless as there's no seal on the bellhousing mating areas anyway and the lowest it could drain is into the bilge. I don't remember where it was fitted to (at its other end) before but now I've just left it running into the bilge. If yours is internal I wonder if both yours and mine are supposed to run from the bellhousing to the interior transom mounted drive area.

Thanks for the wheel tips. I tried a local trailer place I've bought bearings etc from before, they pointed me to a few other places but I haven't contacted the others yet.

My trailer doesn't have brakes, should have I know.

[Gilbertd]

This pipe here, on the outside

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However, the postman has just been and delivered a gasket set from Repower Marine, so I'm off outside to fit the outdrive......

[LPGC]

The pipe hanging down is for the speedo.

I asked on a boating forum on your behalf and have just seen replies.

Apparently it connects to the drive but has broken off from the drive but could be an easy fix (easier if the drive isn't fitted yet).

https://forums.iboats.com/threads/mercr ... st-5925307

[LPGC]

Removed my trim pump, stripped it, now changing some of the O rings.

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[Gilbertd]

I was expecting delivery of a replacement front cover for a Range Rover engine I'm rebuilding that ate its oil pump to arrive today but DHL sent me an email saying it had been delayed and wouldn't arrive until tomorrow but then the postman delivered the outdrive gasket set so decided I'd fit that instead. What a pain that turned out to be. Summoned my neighbour as it is probably the most awkward thing known to man as it needs at least 3 hands to support the weight and guide the driveshaft into place. Even with 2 of us, it would go in almost all the way but not the last half inch, just not far enough to put the nuts on the studs and use them to pull it in. Got to the point that we took it right out and rechecked the alignment, only to both agree it was spot on. Where everything had been greased you could easily see how far it it had gone and we realised that it was the final (new) O ring on the driveshaft that was the only thing stopping it. Shoved it in as far as it would go, put a block of wood against the back of it and whacked it with a mallet and in it went. There's no substitute for brute force and ignorance......

Got the lower part on relatively easily after that and raised the outdrive to the trailer setting to get to the last bolt and saw the socket the little pipe fits into. So a new O ring was fitted on that and it slotted into place. So all I have left to do now is fill it with oil and sit it in a redundant cold water header tank so I can confirm that the impeller is working as it should and slurping water in to cool the engine. Then I'll be looking at finding a large area of water to put it in and give it a run. Nearly there, getting exciting.....