Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

DAYEM....running along last Saturday and KABLAM! Assumed "shit, just blew the powerhead". The racket was awful and killed the motor. Got to look at it last night and it was the lower unit, essentially blowing up on me. Apparently the seal on the drive shaft was bad and let water in, pushing oil out, that allowed it all to get hot, all it took was one more piece to the puzzle to twist the drive shaft in two and eat every gear in there. The lower unit guy said its clear I hit something with a fresh chip out of the steel prop and this is what you get.

That looks expensive!!

Yup.

What a bummer.

I used to eat a aluminum prop every year, even though our lake is very deep. When I switched to stainless, I never bought another prop for my I/O.

I guess they're plus' and minus' either way to aluminum and stainless props. This could happen to anyone.

Your damage was done to very expensive parts components. Finding a whole used lower unit is the only reasonable way to make the repair. EBayMotors.com might have used lower units for your engine.

Damn!


Spur,
I found my lower for the merc 115 for $675 last spring, on ebay. Then the #1 cylinder went out on Memorial day last year. Now we are running with damn near new motor!!!

If the motor is 28 years old I think I would buy a new one, probably not what you wanted to hear but who know what else could go wrong. There are probably some good buys on used motors out there.

SEI will sell you a lower unit for $700 or so. I would really worry about the power head tho., You could have wounded a rod, a bearing or more with that bad a lock up.
I doubt a hit that just caused a little ding in your prop caused all that damage. Running without any oil might tho. All it really takes is a little chip of metal, jamming a gear to do all of that. My bet is you had a bearing in the lower fail first. I little piece of the bearing started the chain reaction.

Actually the bearings are all good, that was a total shock. The motor is fine right now, I even started it up for a second last night after pulling lower. I thought about going with a used one, but for the same money im gonna get one rebuilt with one year warranty. No brainer for me.

I thought I was having a crappy boating season, until now! Sorry to hear about that!

Wow nice carnage.

If you boat a lot, and I do, this stuff happens. Good thing is he will have it ready tomorrow. Hows that for service?

Ouch, ouch, ouch!! Both for the part and the bucks to get it fixed.
Sorry to read about your misfortune, hope the rest of the season is uneventful.

At least you can slap a rebuilt lower unit on there in 1/2 hour. It's no long, drawn out repair.

From what you have told us I don't believe you can put the blame on a stainless prop. With all the problems you had going on it could have happened with a tin prop.

Sure, it probably could have, but to be safe Im going back to aluminum.