Alarm every 4 seconds

[ShaneBethThornton]

My husband and I purchased our first boat July 2022 and it has been a nightmare ever since. We had the boat inspected before we purchased it, no issues found. Early August 2022, we received a call that our 2002 Sea Ray Sundancer 260 was sinking. We pumped the water out and had it towed to the boat launch, removed it from the water, engine never started. We took it to a mechanic and he left it sit till April 2023 when he decided to look at it. He said gimbal bearing broke and caused the issues. He charged us multiple thousand of dollars and gave it back to us with an alarm going off every 4 seconds, bilge blowers not working, and engine stalling shortly after starting. We took it back to the mechanic and he tore apart the lower unit telling us it needed to be rebuilt and wanted to charge us thousands more. I didn't believe him after speaking to many boat enthusiasts, so we took the boat home and used our brains and the original manuals to put the lower unit back together and on the boat. We also changed the stern drive oil reservoir due to manual recommendation. The every 4 second alarm, engine stalling, and bilge blower issues are still present. It has a Mercruiser 6.2L w/ Bravo III.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Golfman25]

So start from the beginning. You had the boat inspected? Was that structural, mechanical -- what was "inspected" and by whom? Did you test run it before purchase? How did it do then? Did you use it between July 2022 and when you got the call in August? How did it run?

How high did the water get? What got wet?

Why did it sit for a year before it was looked at after taking on water?

What did the mechanic do? Did he pull the engine to work on the gimbal bearing? When he took the boat back to work on the out drive, do you know if he scanned the engine for any codes, or is he just winging it?

You're going to need to take this one step at a time to get going again.

 

[Scott215]

Need a lot more info to even try to help. Is gear oil reservoir topped off. How are the manifolds and risers. Need pics and info