Good or Bad mechanic ?

E

ehood

Member
Sep 14, 2014
47
St. Petersburg, FL
Boat Info
1985 300 Weekender
Engines
5.7 , props & shafts
Just wondering if I'm off base on this? Had a mechanic out to change impellers, stats and oil change on 86 300 weekender. That was on a Monday I pulled it off the lift Fri. to head out with the wife for a day out. Cranked the starboard and no water out the exhaust, had thick smoke though. Shut it down checked the raw water valve and it is open, try again still no water rev'd up a bit still no water. Shut down again checked sea stainer nothing but a little smoke from motor side. Anyway called mech. He could not come by (lives half mile away) till Monday, ended up not coming till Tuesday spent 20 min. Said all he did was disconnected and reconnect hoses to pump(I think he put them back on correctly) . He said it could have been "air locked".

Now my issue, he replaced impeller and housing and stats and didn't, couldn't have ran them after the maintenance , oh !!! One motor now has a 163 degree stat and the other a 143 degree . Am I off base thinking WTF!!! No run up after changing that stuff and plus blowing me off for four days. I could bite through rebar!!! Oh and the explanation for the temp diff is that the new impeller is causing the motor to run at 143 and the other with 20 hours on it to run at 163.:smt013:smt013
 
bad mechanic... Next time do it yourself... Its too hard to get a good mechanic when you need one, and water pumps and T stats are not hard to change...
 
He may be the greatest mechanic in the world, but after what you've been through, you'll obviously lost confidence in him and probably would never trust that anything he does would be done right the first time. Find another one or start doing it all yourself!
 
I'm with the rest on this topic. Maintenance items should be done yourself if possible.

You save tons of money on labor costs and you never doubt your work when it's finished. Additionally having hands and eyes on your engine allows you to notice potential hazards before they happen like rusted hose clamps, leaking oil and other small thinks that go wrong.

If you can't do the maintenance yourself and money isn't an option I'd take it to a dealer. At least you have some kind of warranty and a place to take it back to when something isn't working right after a repair. There's no guarantee they'll get you in the same day either but I'm sure they would have run the engine to make sure all was right before letting the boat out of the shop[.
 
Put my vote in the "bad mechanic" column.

So about the "air-lock"... Is that really a seawater pump issue?? Instances of air-lock that I know of are circulating pumps, not seawater. I'm not a mechanic, but in my decades of boating it's been my experience that an impeller primes and pumps and pushes water into the system, or it doesn't prime and destroys itself.

It sounds to me like he had the hoses reversed.
 
Boater420 said:
You save tons of money on labor costs and you never doubt your work when it's finished. [.
Click to expand...

That's one of the main reasons I DON'T do many of my own repairs. I'm very mechanically inclined and I love doing stuff around the house. I'm also a bit ADD and anal retentive, so I always do things meticulously. However, my overall DIY knowledge of boats and engines is limited, so I would rather pay somebody to boat do repairs than try it myself, not be confident and maybe get stranded on the water or worse because I've screwed something up. Add to that the fact that I've reached a point in my life where sometimes I'd rather just write a check than learn a new skill.
 
Yep, bad mechanic column, temps should be the same with the new parts.damage from a dry impeller is measured in seconds not minutes. for peace of mind I would have him change the warm one or have some one else replace it
 
Bad mech....YES. Now to the real problems. Consider yourself at war. In war you have your known knowns, your known unknowns, and the worst, the situation you are in, the unknown unknowns.


You have to assume the impeller in the "airlocked" engine is toast...IF... it was changed at all. It does not take a lot of dry run time to tear them up.

I would assume the "good" engine was never done.

I would assume the t-stats are both as defective as the mech who did the work.

If I were in your shoes (and I have been in them a time or two) I would tear out everything he touched and replace it myself. Word of mouth will have the guy out on the street in month.
 
dpmulvey said:
Bad mech....YES. Now to the real problems. Consider yourself at war. In war you have your known knowns, your known unknowns, and the worst, the situation you are in, the unknown unknowns.


You have to assume the impeller in the "airlocked" engine is toast...IF... it was changed at all. It does not take a lot of dry run time to tear them up.

I would assume the "good" engine was never done.

I would assume the t-stats are both as defective as the mech who did the work.

If I were in your shoes (and I have been in them a time or two) I would tear out everything he touched and replace it myself. Word of mouth will have the guy out on the street in month.
Click to expand...

+1 :thumbsup:
 
Any mechanic can make a mistake. The way to tell a good mechanic is they make fewer mistakes, and they own the mistakes they make. Several errors were made. I am not buying the air lock excuse because he should have discovered that and fixed it before he left. Same with the "just took hoses off and re-installed them". What?? If they were not on backwards how could that be a fix? Then the T-stats are different? WTF??
New mechanic time. If you have history with this technician, and he has been stellar before,
you might think about giving him a chance to make it right. But judging from his first response, I say let him strand someone else's family on the water.
I do whatever I can myself. If I can not do it, she goes to the boat yard.
"Pay for the best and you will only cry once".
 
Hey everyone. Thanks for the input and I agree with all 100%. I have been gradually climbing in and doing it myself but was wanting to find someone I could depend on to do things that were a little tough or when time was tight. He and his wife moved to St. Pete area a year ago and thought I'd throw him a little business and get a relationship going especially since he lives just half mile away or so.
Probably the biggest reason is my 6'2" 240lbs ass is hard to get down into the front of the 300 with the motors up against the front (shafts & props).

I am really amazed at the lack of work ethic , with mobile marine mech. In the area. He was the 5 one although two others were no shows . first one, put hoses backwards, didn't tighten raw water hose another time and ordered and installed wrong motor a different time.

Yes I will resign myself to doing it all myself from here on out unless it goes to the shop. Our dad had me working on cars and our WellCraft stepV22 since probably 8 the grade , 10 years working on F-15's in the AirForce and with McDonnell Douglas and computers for another 20+ .

Will continue to hang out here, can't beat all the advice, knowledge and experience contained in one location.
 
Last edited:
ehood said:
Hey everyone. Thanks for the input and I agree with all 100%. I have been gradually climbing in and doing it myself but was wanting to find someone I could depend on to do things that were a little tough or when time was tight. He and his wife moved to St. Pete area a year ago and thought I'd throw him a little business and get a relationship going especially since he lives just half mile away or so.
Probably the biggest reason is my 6'2" 240lbs ass is hard to get down into the front of the 300 with the motors up against the front (shafts & props).

I am really amazed at the lack of work ethic , with mobile marine mech. In the area. He was the 5 one although two others were no shows . first one, put hoses backwards, didn't tighten raw water hose another time and ordered and installed wrong motor a different time.

Yes I will resign myself to doing it all myself from here on out unless it goes to the shop. Our dad had me working on cars and our WellCraft stepV22 since probably 8 the grade , 10 years working on F-15's in the AirForce and with McDonnell Douglas and computers for another 20+ .

Will continue to hang out here, can't beat all the advice, knowledge and experience contained in one location.
Click to expand...

I hear you. I'm 6'4" and 220. Now is the time you can adapt the engines to do what you need as opposed to what Merc wants you to need. Also a prime time to look into a business should you be so inclined. There are few good mechanics out there. The USAF trusted you with multimillion dollar jets looks good on a resume!
 
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