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MikeeH

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I didn't want to hi-jack the Alpha 1 shift cable thread in ATC so I figured I'd share my issues here. To begin with, the boat is a 1988 Wellcraft 190 Classic that had less than 100 hours on it and had been in covered storage for 10 years. I bought it on New Years Eve 3 years ago. Since having it I've replaced the starter, carb, fuel pump and rw pump in the OD. Yes, all these were original and suffered the pains of long storage. The bellows were also original but my mechanic looked at them at the beginning of last season and blessed them for one more year. There were hard but not damaged otherwise which he said was because they were not subjected to UV while in storage.

I had my mech come in to change the bellows (all 3), gimbal bearing, etc. When he pulled the OD he found that water had penetrated the upper unit and contaminated the gear oil. The gears were pitted from the water, the yoke was rusted and the shift shaft was bent. So, he's taking care of all that, mostly with parts he had left over from another drive he had on the bench.

Moral of the story... I don't know. Just glad he found it all and will have it repaired before I suffered a serious failure!
 
Mike,
The moral of the story is use it because low hours doesn't guarantee anything. We all know that a low hour 10yr old boat is more likely to have problems than a 500 hour 10yr old boat. I do maintenance by time passed not hours because boats age whether you use them or not. So it's the middle of March and your already for the season, I'm still waiting for it to get warm enough to go out and get started. Go boating and forget the aggravation that's what I'm going to do!
Rob
 
Rob,
Yes, I expected most of the engine issues but the OD issues beyond the bellows were an unpleasant finding. Hey, its a boat! ;). When we get back to MD I still need to finish up the refurb of the interior stuff but that's easy.
 
Work is finished and the OD is back on the transom and I didn't even get my hands dirty. New bellows (all 3), trim sensors, gimbal bearing and shift cable. Had water water intrusion which contaminated the gear lube in upper unit so that was rebuilt (gears were blued) and yoke replaced. Also rebuilt the water pump while the OD was off. Tech did everything either in my garage or with the drive in his shop. All I did was run the trim up/down while he did the final adjustments. Total cost $1340. No complaints from me and he took a lot of time to explain things... I learned a bunch.

Now, I just need to finish restoring the interior, cleaning up some rewiring I was doing and maybe R&R the fresh water pump (drips a bit). Oh, and clean it!
 
Cost of repairing the upper gearcase might've been about the same as a new one from SEI. We went SEI, but the reason we did it was the castings were wasted away with saltwater corrosion. If it weren't for that, I would have wanted to repair the MerC components like you did. Good choice!

One reason for changing gear lube annually (even if you accumulate only a few hours) is to see if it's contaminated with water. You can deal with it before internal damage is done. So please do that. Which gear lube did he use? MerC has two and one's supposed to be able to be better against water intrusion. It's the "Green One" MerC (Maybe Quicksilver) High Performance, 92-858064K01. It and the other, called Premium, shouldn't be mixed, but OK to fully drain one and replace with the other.
 
Not sure which he used but I'll ask. And, yes, I'll drain and replace the gear oil at the same time I change motor oil every fall. Thx.
 
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