YAY!!! The decals are finally here!!!

The decals for the outboard finally arrived here today. I took some time and made some alignment lines so they would look good and look even in relation to each other. Heres a couple pics:

It doesn't look factory perfect, but it sure looks one helluva lot better than it did before!!

Factory or aftermarket?

Factory or aftermarket? The choice between the two comes up frequently. When it was my Chevelles I was dealing with, I loved aftermarket stuff. Exhaust, Carbeuration, Cams, and on and on... When I was living in MN and the subject was snowmobiles, I used both. Rotax oil was good stuff. Factory pipes were good too. Aftermarket studs were sweet. Aftermarket parts that reduced weight were nice too. Now days, with this Mercury outboard, I am in unfamiliar territory. Now, I am not looking to hop this motor up, its fine as is. I did however have the cowl (engine cover) that needed cleaning up. It was scuffed and scratched and looked rather beat. Some scratches are too deep to fix without paint, but they are few. This brings me back to the question: Factory or aftermarket?

I needed something to rub the scratches out of the cover. I looked at meguires, and a few other brands of rubbing compound. Never having been much of a "artsy" kind of guy, I was lost. I can turn a wrench with the best of them, but ask me to do body work, paint work, etc...and I just don't have the eye for it.

I decided to start with factory stuff, and move forward if that didn't work. So I bought some Mercury Precision Care Cowl Finishing Compound. Earlier this afternoon, I brought the cowl in and let it cool down. Being in the sun all day, it was HOT!! After it cooled down, I started on it with the cowl finishing compound. The Mercury brand stuff was, in a word, AMAZING. It took out scratches that I did not think would come out, and left a VERY nice finish. The new decals will (hopefully) be here tomorrow. If so, I will put them on, and get some pics up of the worked over cowl. It won't look factory perfect, but it will look pretty damn good compared to what it looked like when we brought it home.

So folks, in this case...Factory may or may not be better then aftermarket, but it IS plenty good enough to get the job done.
I also have a spray can of Mercury Phantom Black, for some touch up...its test will be coming one day soon.

Stay tuned.

Don't you just hate it when...

Don't you just hate it when you set out to do something simple...something...trivial, and it turns into a royal pain in the ass?

Such was my experience today installing the speed/temp sensor on the boat. It goes like this:

1) Place sensor body in position, and use its screw slots as a template, and mark the hull for drilling of the 4 screw holes.

2) Drill screw holes, and run screws in flush to make sure they go in far enough.

3) Place sealant in screw holes, and coat screws with sealant.

4) Align sensor back in its mounting location, and screw in screws. Double-check that sealant is where and how it should be.

5) Route cable to your sonar per your application.

Done, right? WRONG! Enter the drill bit that broke in step 2 after 3 of the 4 holes were drilled. I have no explanation of why the damn thing broke, I was drilling into fiberglass ever so slowly and carefully. Not only did it break, but it broke and left about 4 MM of bit sticking out of the hull. Not alot to grab onto with a vice grip, and not enough to chuck into the drill to reverse it out. After several hours of tapping it with a trim nail hammer it finally came loose enough to come out with a vice grip. What a PAIN IN THE ASS. I had to remind myself that the sensor cost me a 13 bucks and some change when it should have cost 60-ish dollars, to keep from throwing things. I'll appreciate seeing my speed when cruising/temp for fishing that much more, I expect.

What a day...

So we got up and took the boat in to Buzz's marine today. Then we proceeded to run many errands for most of the morning and early afternoon. We had pictures that were ready to pick up and quite a few places to go, so it wasn't til after 3:00 that we got back to Buzz's. Heres one of the pics:

The verdict? The oil injection works fine!! No more doubts, no more mixxing gas!! We removed the decals from the sides of the outboards cover, and have new "Mercury" decals on the way. At Buzz's we picked up some cowl polishing compound, in addition to some Mercury "phantom black" touch up paint. I'll post pics of the cover after we get that tackled and the new decals on it.

A final note...Between the truck, the boat, and 3 5-gallon cans, we bought almost 50 gallons of fuel today. Locally it would have cost us 3.299 a gallon. Buying it in Kearney, we paid 2.959 a gallon. An 18-ish dollar savings. It drives me nuts to think that ust a few years ago, our bill for the gas would have been 60-ish dollars, instead of the 150-ish we paid. We live in interesting times.

Tilt/trim finished.

It arrived. The new tilt/trim motor from Arco Marine that is. It arrived packaged well for shipping, and completely intact. Upon opening the box, it became quite clear that Arco products have quite a nice clean new, and "not cheap" appearance. I then spent some time boning up on removal procedure in the Mercury Marine manual, and went to work.

The old unit was a cinch to remove, but it needed some flushing out since a little water had contaminated the unit. With that done, I then fastened the new motor to the trim pump/ram assembly with the provided SS allen bolts and o-ring, and filled the unit up. It works like new now.

Unfortunately, I don't have pictures. It was a messy job, and no place for a digital camera. Maybe I will get Darla to take some finished results pics tomorrow after we get the boat home from Buzz's marine.

T-11:20 and counting.

Preparations for tomorrow...

Tomorrow the boat goes to Buzz's Marine in Kearney for an oil injection pump test. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Preparations for that include the trailer wiring made 100%...which I did last nite , wearing a thick coat of mosquito spray. Also, taking three 5-gallon gas cans with, since the gas in kearney is 30 cents cheaper than it is locally. The new tilt/trim pump should be here today - gratz Arco Marine in Florida on making a fine product and earning my business, and 316$ - and it will be nice to get that finally fixxed. I'm also going to get the battery warrantied for the blazer while I am at it. We'll also be coming home with more pictures of the boat, and a whole bunch of pics from the mini-vacation we took in the black hills over Memorial Day weekend.

Tomorrow should be an interesting day indeed.

Some thoughts...

In my youth, I worked at a salvage yard or 2 and and had alot of friends that did too. One of the things I learned from that experience was that salvage yards have interchange manuals to guide in knowing what parts interchange between different models of vehicle. Such a manual would be HELPFUL in dealing with Mercury marine products. Would an engine cover from a mercury 90 horse fit a mercury 115 horse of the same era, for example. Mercury Marine has a decent site with diagrams, but for interchange info it is not so good, because you have to have the serial number of the motor in question. One is likely to only have half of the equation, unless one owns both of the things they want to know about interchange on, in which case they could just figure it out the old fashioned way.

Also, I am unable thus far to find where one might get oem replacement parts for the boat itself - online, anyway. The trailer needs a couple replacement parts too, and I am just not finding them. I guess a check with a Starcraft dealer is in order one of these days. I knew that would be unavoidable at some point.