Side Projects - Two Hundred Dolla Holla costs more than it says

Did you really expect me to buy something for $200 and have it go as planned?

Here's some motivation to read the whole thing. Or a spoiler so you don't have to read at all.

It all started so well

The motor went right in, fired right up, and all that's left was installing the stern drive and buffing the gel coat for 500 hours.

Everythings is a lie

To reiterate for the 30,000th time, I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know much about boats. I'm learning a lot and figuring it all out, but I came into this with ZERO experience with I/O boats. Stern drives are this kinda mystical thing to me. I knew it had a gear set in it for changing directions of the prop but other than that is was just an assembly of parts. 

Naturally, everything is broken.

And I mean EVERYTHING. Some of it was things I broke because I didn't know they weren't supposed to come apart with a pry bar and a floor jack, most of it was just 20 years old and needed replaced. Where do we even start...

How about some learning, so we're all on the same page?

This is a stern drive, some call it an outdrive, I call it a pain in the ass money pit.

This unit does a lot. It bolts to the back of the boat and has a driveshaft that connects to the motor. It uses that spinning drive shaft to power a water pump that pushes water up to the motor for cooling. It has a system of gears that directs the power to the prop while allowing for selections of forwards and reverse. This whole unit turns left to right. This whole unit tilts up and down. There is an oil feed system to keep the gears happy. There are hydraulic rams for tilt, and rack and pinion for steering.

Not unlike a car, everything that moves or pivots is made of rubber or plastic and needed replaced because it was from 2001. nbd, I thought. Just slap some new parts on it. But first we disassemble.

Here you can see the Gimbal mounted to the boat and the rest of the drive removed. 

The main outdrive comes off pretty easily, if you know what you're doing. It's six nuts and some wiggling. The outdrive is somewhere around 80lbs and wont stand by itself so this can be a little bit of a trick. Unless you're me. Then you don't read about putting it in forward gear BEFORE you try this. Instead I ended up with a pry bar and some swear words. But I got it. We'll talk about that damage later.

This is going to get a little technical and specific to Alpha one Gen 2 outdrives, feel free to skip.

This is a diagram

Above you can see the breakdown of just the parts between the outdrive assembly and the gimbal ring that mounts to the boat. This big metal chunk is what does all the swivel, tilt, and sealing off of the moving parts. Those big tubes labeled 11 and 17 are called bellows. The drive shaft goes through the top one and the exhaust goes through the bottom one. The small box contains the shift cable end, also with its own bellow. These are rubber to be able to flex with the steering and tilt. They are also major components that live at the water line, protecting parts we don't want to get wet.

At this point I'm confused but whatever let's take it apart

It can't come apart. I need some special tools. $200 worth of them. At this point of the project I have roughly $800 into the WHOLE thing so spending $200 on tools sounds terrible.

I finally pulled the plug and bought the hinge pin tool, the bellows, the bellow install tools, the hoses, the special bellow glue, the shift cable tool, gear lube, new anodes, new impeller kit, new propeller kit, new gimbal bearing, the special gimbal bearing puller, the special alignment bar, pump base seals, shift shaft bushing assembly, and finally some new trim senders. If at some point earlier you thought I was exaggerating, I wasn't. It all needed replaced.

Now I have as much money into the sterndrive as I do into the entire boat, including a new motor. But that's alright. We're still way under budget here. This is only true because I don't have a budget.

Here we are with all the bellows, hoses, and shift cable removed. You can see a rogue trim sender floating around there, we'll revisit that. Tearing these bellows out isn't a delicate process. You start pulling to expose what you can, then stick a sharp knife in there and cut them apart. Ok, done. Time to get the bearing out.

Gimbal bearing puller tool

I bought one of these, and I'm glad I did. Even with a special made tool, I still needed my biggest pipe wrench and a cheater bar to get it removed. This is used to pull the bearing out of the silver-ringed hole from the picture above. It does this by bracing against the housing and threading back towards itself after you've locked it onto the blind side of the bearing. Cool! Old one out, new one goes back in with a steel shaft and a hammer. Just whack it back where the old one was. Done.

Problems

And here I hit the 93rd time that I am confused by boats. Boats need alignments? Turns out they do. The gimbal bearing that we just removed and replaced carries the drive shaft. The driveshaft is fixed to the sterndrive but has U joints that allow the outdrive to tilt and steer. The center of the bearing needs to line up perfectly with the center of the engine's output coupler. This makes sense. But getting it all aligned wasn't like they show in the movies. The bearing can "wobble" within its outer ring to help you get it aligned on all planes with the engine coupler. 

Have another diagram! 

With the pile of tools I bought, one of them is a machined shaft that helps you align all the bits. All you do is put a thin layer of grease on it, shove it in, pull it out, and check to see where the grease was rubbed off. Then you can adjust the motor mounts up and down along with the bearing angle to get it all lined up. This task took me the better part of a week and I later learned this is usually done during the install of the engine. Oh. 

We're in the final stretch 

That's not true. But I thought it was at the time. How could it get more defeating after that alignment situation? Just gotta shove all the bellows on, bolt it back together. Which is exactly what the instructions said, right?

And that is nearly how it goes. A really snug puzzle of bellows and hoses and clamps. There isn't enough room to reach back in there and get clamps tight without the use of a 12" flexible 1/4" extension. And even then it's a delicate dance of wiggling and jiggling and reaching in with whatever you can find to persuade things into their new homes. 

And now we're back to this point. There isn't any good way to capture the process of getting all the back together. You have to slather the bellows in glue, shove them on the boat side, tighten the hose clamps, dont forget anything, then shove that whole housing back on before the glue dries. During this process you need to get the shift cable bellow, water hose, and oil feed hooked back up. ALL of this is hidden and inaccessible by anything more than a long flat head screwdriver and a flexible extension. It was tricky but went quickly. 

Remember that part about using a pry bar?

Well here is the point where I pay for that mistake. Fast forward to the part where I get the sterndrive back on. Now when I put it in forward, it goes backwards. And reverse no longer works. 

I dropped all the tools and gave up. 

I returned a couple days later to oil pouring out of the weep holes. I hate everything. 

That's the weep hole. Also made me weep.

So what's goin on here? We have a shift issue and an oil leak. The whole things gotta come back apart. I gotta learn even more about these things. So that's what I did.

It turns out, if you don't put the shifter in forward gear when you remove it and then use a pry bar to get around that process, you fuck up some stuff. Particularly with the shift shaft. In forward, those are perfectly aligned in parallel to the boat. In neutral, they are slid into each other at 45* angle. 

The metal shaft with the bend is the shift shaft.  That plastic bit it goes into is the bushing. 

I got "lucky" and only had to replace the lower shift shaft bushing assembly. The shift shaft itself didn't bend or break, but it did skip gears in place. Realigned that and installed new bushing assembly. $15 and another days work. Alright. Reassemble. It. Still. Leaks. 

Impeller pumps

This is the lower unit. The impeller pump is the stack on the left. The upper seal is 18.

I knew I was going to replace the impeller pump because I wanted the peace of mind. They're critical to the motor, less than $50, and only the lower unit needs removed. And wouldn't you know, that whole water pump was full of oil too! This was a nice thing to find. A "solid break" is much easier to diagnose. Another $30 for a new upper seal and all is well. I can reassemble all of that now.

Trim senders :(

There are two of these on the outdrive. One sends a signal to the trim gauge to show you how far up or down it is. The other limits travel so you can't tilt too far. Mine worked fine! No worries, just assemble tho......oh. The wires are showing wayyyy up at the top where they go through the transom. And the only way to replace them is to remove the WHOLE sterndrive AGAIN. 

We're in the final stretch! Again! 

Let's recap:
New motor is in! It runs.
The whole sterndrive is like new. I've replaced the gimbal bearing, all the bellows, the trim senders, the shift shaft bushing, the upper shaft seal, all the little orings and gaskets. I put a new propeller and a new set of anodes on too. It's time to get the thing outside so we can get water run to the lower unit, get the engine up to temp, test the new parts, and finally set the timing on the motor.

Welp. It won't start now. Sigh.

Electrical things and pretty lights

It makes sense that a $200 boat would need a battery. But I want two batteries. And I want them separated so I can fall asleep with the radio on and wake up to a boat that still starts. Also I want lights. Lights for seeing things and lights that look cool. But I need to be able to dim those lights incase they're too bright.

Batteries

The marine parts world is huge. There's 10 options for everything. So when it came to battery isolators, I had no idea what to buy. I did some searching and there was one main brand and model that most people buy...that I didn't want. I wanted the automagic one. So I ordered that, went to Rural king to pick up two new batteries and a second box. Wired all that up, topped them off, still no start. 

Marine starters

The old starter probably had a really hard life in the past. People cranking on a trashed and overheated motor until it fired on what was left of the cylinders. It made sense that i'd need a new one, and not much of a concern since SBC starts are like, idk, $12?

bUt ITs NoT a MaRiNE sTaRTer some asshole mumbles to themself. You're fuckin right. Marine starters are not the same as truck starters. So far as I can tell they just paint them a little nicer. 

Give you $12 if you can tell me if this for a car or a boat.

Anyway, I spent $200 on a damn starter for a small block chevy. Works a treat. 

Pretty lights. 

While we're on the subject, let's discuss that little detour. 

This whole project has been about replacing parts with OEM stuff using proper tools and fluids. My only goal with this boat is to have a marine tech look at it and say "looks like its in good, original condition". But lights seemed like a harmless addition. I wanted a couple flush mount lights in the bow and 4 hidden flush mount lights throughout the rest of it. Also a dimmer. 

So I did all that.

And I couldn't resist my teenage urge to added lighted cup holders. Looks really nice. Really like the way it came out. Of course, I used only marine rated wire and solder-seal connectors. Should last a long time.

Time to test on it!

We've traversed the mountains of work for the motor replacement, the sterndrive rebuild, the electrical changes, now we can take it outside and fire it up for real!

Put the muffs on it, cranked it over, fired right up! Idle is off because of the timing not being set. Take a victory breath. While it's running I'm going to go turn the distributor a little to bring that timing in. 

Open the cover.

Water. Going. Everywhere. No testing today. Back to buying parts and fixing I guess.

Ok, it almost runs but it needs to be shiny too.

Here's some photos since you've already read 1400 words.

Day 1. Has no shine, clearly hasn't been cared for.

Rear swim platform was nasty, but cleaned up fast. 

No joke, I have 100 hours into buffing, polishing, and waxing this boat.  

Look at the shine on this thing!

The interior was very nasty. I had to clean off all the buffing compound, then buff the inside, then clean the seats and carpet.

This may be the best I'll ever feel about my ability to make things look nice.

Back to fixing!

So that little fit I had with the water going everywhere was a pretty cut and dry case of me cutting corners. I left a 1/2" plug missing on the starboard side cylinder head. There were secondary leaks from the exhaust manifold bungs. These things are littered with 3/4" NPT holes for all the different water circulation options. 

This is an exhaust manifold. You can see they come with 7 plugs and 1 fitting/drain assembly. All 8 of these were leaking...on both manifolds. I ended up needing to remove one manifold to install the plug into the cylinder head I forgot anyway.

Fixed that up! Time for a lake test!

Battery draw

I installed two new batteries and despite flipping the main kill switch, I still kept walking out to dead batteries. WTF, man. After some head scratching, double checking my work, checking out the warranty on the batteries, I came to the conclusion my alternator had a bad diode pack. Welp, another overpriced "marine" part in the mail. Installed, problem fixed. Shew!

LAKE TIME!

The first day out on the lake was mostly a success! The boat ran but it made a slight knocking sound in the sterndrive. The idle was too high, there wasn't much power at 2500 rpm, and it would only go 44mph. Still ran good enough to get a sunburn and enjoy the day. I intended for this day to be a shakedown run so nothing terrible here.

More fixing

Ugh. Pull the sterndrive back off the boat. Hammer that gimbal bearing in 3/16" and the noise is gone! The rest of my issues are timing related, I'm sure of it. 

Lake day 2!

Not a perfect boat day. Three grown men and our coolers were just a bit too much weight for the power coming out of the boat. This is a problem. The boat should have more power than it needs for any activity. I played with the timing a bunch but didn't bring the right tools with me. We ended up having a good day, but it over heated at the end of it. 

The feeling of fulfillment from watching a sunset on a boat you rebuilt is a feeling I'll be reaching for forever. 

More fixing!

This time it's just a water pump. Bought the non-OEM because shipping was faster. I didn't take any pictures of this because it isn't exciting or involved. But heres a picture of a water pump.

Lake day 3!

What. A. Day. Whoah. My first real boat day. Put it in the water and ran it hard all day. I had previously spent some time with a timing gun and dialed it into stock range. It still needs more attention there since it has a camshaft and the wrong heads, but I think I can get it where it needs to be. I replaced the old spark plugs and will eventually replace the whole ignition system. In the mean time, it runs 50MPH comfortably, handles like a dream, and is an absolute blast. 

It over heated again at the end of day 3. That's what I get for ordering the non-OEM part. 

Welp. I'm an idiot.

The boat continued to run well on plane, struggle to get on plane, and overheat very predictively at 7pm regardless of how hard it was run throughout the day. I pulled the exhaust manifolds, the hoses, the water pump and even tore the lower unit back off to check the impeller pump. Gave everything a good cleaning, checked that nothing got sucked up in there, scratched my head a bit more, bought more parts. 

I put on a new water pump again with but this time with a $250 OEM part. I replaced the thermostat with an aftermarket thermostat. I replaced the spark plugs, spark plug wires, distributor cap and rotor, the coil. I bought a new prop with a smaller pitch for more acceleration. 

This is a 4 blade prop

The prop made the most difference so far. 

After this, I started thinking maybe it's my carb but it always smells really rich on fuel so that doesn't make sense. And then I uh, I realized that even though boats don't have air filters, the flame arrestor can still get clogged. Instead of paper or foam filters, boats use stacks of metal plates with tiny gaps in between. This is intended to stop any flames that could backfire from the engine. Mine was plugged right the fuck up. 

Flame arrestor

Boat runs pretty good! If at any point you start to think I know what I'm doing, remind yourself I spent a couple months and about $600 diagnosing a clogged flame arrestor. 

Owning a boat is a lot

I've learned a lot about boating this year. I learned how to drive a boat. I learned how to launch my boat and I learned how to load up in the dark. I've made a lot of progress on my docking abilities too!

I learned to read how the boat rides and how (not) to approach wakes. Got the boat airborne a couple times. Bashed the prop up in a cove and put a couple new scuffs on the rub rails. I have a whole laundry list of changes and upgrades to make this winter but here's the cost run down so far. 

Engine Replacement		$1,048
Sterndrive Rebuild		$882.03
Upgrades		$437.25
Trailer Maintenance		$278.31
General Maintenance		$920.29
Taxes and Registration:		$634.00

There is a very detailed google sheet with every part linked with the date and cost associated. Here is the summery. $4200. I also sold parts of the new engine that I didn't need for just under $400 which isn't reflected in any of the above numbers. So I'm really only $3800 deep into this freshly repowered boat.

Boat life

I put 42 hours of engine run time on the boat this year. Took it out nearly 20 times and enjoyed the vast majority of those. It's been an exciting new hobby to learn and despite the larger investment than expected, I'm still in for less than half the nada value including tax and registration. Can't beat that. 

Until next year

I have some medium-major plans for the interior this winter. Possibly even for the exterior. The boat is in great shape for its age, but it is 20 years old. Time to bring it up to at least 2010 standards.