Nick Hahn
Member
How were your seat frames? Mine seem a little weak if you push back against them. Need to re-do the upholstery in the next year or so, kind of afraid what I will get into though.
Official 400EC thread
- Thread starter Air O'Nautical
- Start date
BostonPaul
New Member
Looks great! We are going to tackle one of the side panels this weekend. I'll post some pictures.
jonsm114
Active Member
Seats. Helm are formed up of roto molded plastic....a bit tricky to repair.
jonsm114
Active Member
jonsm114
Active Member
Plastic frames, 1996 400EC. Stripped prior to now foam and vinyl.
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sws01
Member
- Aug 4, 2020
- 35
- Boat Info
- 1994 Sea Ray 400 Express Cruiser
- Engines
- 7.4L Bluewater Mercruisers
Thanks to all for the information. I found this weekend that the 2 fuel filters behind the fuel crossover manifold valves can (and were) replaced by the same Mercruiser fuel filters for the engine mounted filter.
BTW, I'm relative sure, based on how the mounts for these filters were installed, that it was NOT a factory installation. Each mount has 3 mounting holes for up to as large as a 5/16" bolt, but one mount was put on with two 1/4" or 3/16" wood screws and one cheap, small drywall screw. So when the filter wrench was used to loosen the filter, it instead ripped out the small drywall screw. So I remounted both filter mounts with thru-bolted 5/16" screws, which is how they should have been done originally.
Still not sure about what to do regarding the fuel filter labeled "Special Marine". It appears to be for the genset. I talked to the parts experts at the Erwin Marine at their Boat Show this weekend and they could find nothing about that part. So, I visited some local auto parts stores. They show the Wix 33110 fuel filter, but it's not in stock. I'm going to order it online and see what happens.
Thanks again for the info.
sws01
Member
- Aug 4, 2020
- 35
- Boat Info
- 1994 Sea Ray 400 Express Cruiser
- Engines
- 7.4L Bluewater Mercruisers
NEW PLAN:
Remove the whatever-it-is fuel filter currently installed and its mounting bracket and replace with Sierra mounting bracket for either the official Mercruiser filters that are used everywhere else or their Sierra equivalents. This filter is for the Quicksilver genset, so I don't think it should have more stringent specs than the ones for the mains.
Also, I ordered the Lockey C-150 door lock yesterday in Marine Grade finish. It should be here by end-of-week and I'll install it soon as well.
Thanks to all for the support.
Remove the whatever-it-is fuel filter currently installed and its mounting bracket and replace with Sierra mounting bracket for either the official Mercruiser filters that are used everywhere else or their Sierra equivalents. This filter is for the Quicksilver genset, so I don't think it should have more stringent specs than the ones for the mains.
Also, I ordered the Lockey C-150 door lock yesterday in Marine Grade finish. It should be here by end-of-week and I'll install it soon as well.
Thanks to all for the support.
jonsm114
Active Member
jonsm114
Active Member
Oh boy. Garmins for engine displays arrived today. Time to get to work.
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jonsm114
Active Member
Adding two more loung pads on the deck. All three will fasten side by side. Had SeaRay logo embroidered on one. Denise is gonna like.
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Eluther3
Active Member
- Mar 17, 2019
- 290
- Boat Info
- 1992 Searay 400 EC
- Engines
- Mercruiser
Got an unpleasant surprise today. Cranked the engines up for the first time since the big freeze here in Texas. Started the port engine but didnt see any water coming out of the exhaust. Shut it down and checked the engine room Found this:
Water all over the engine room. Still kind of new at this, but I think that's the engine oil cooler assembly. Any trick to changing it? Looks like a simple part swap
Water all over the engine room. Still kind of new at this, but I think that's the engine oil cooler assembly. Any trick to changing it? Looks like a simple part swap
Eluther3
Active Member
- Mar 17, 2019
- 290
- Boat Info
- 1992 Searay 400 EC
- Engines
- Mercruiser
Correction - Power Steering
Guys
I'm in the middle of my helm seat repair due to the cracked frame. It's not too bad once you get the material and foam off seat. I would caution anyone with a seat feeling too flexy to fix it ASAP. Based on how the seat fails there is no doubt during a hard acceleration it could fail completely from the additional force of your body and you could end up doing a header into the back of the cockpit. I also think it could damage the vinyl considerably. There are several guys on this thread that have fixed the seat plus I found this one guy who made a thread with good pictures, the process and materials used on a web page listed below.
https://www.epoxyworks.com/index.php/sea-ray-400-seat-repairs/
Im in the process of gluing and have to say am impressed with the quality of the materials. Here are just a few prictures which represent seat in various steps along the process. West System G/Flex 655 and some glass reinforcement. Bought the small kit from Jamestown Dist. for $38. Might have enough to do 4 major crack locations in my seat. Bond of epoxy to plastic is VERY strong.
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Bought and installed the C-150 myself after seeing a couple others on here use it, and works great for us.
It *did* involve quite a bit of fabrication and shimming, and trimming of the door. There is quite a bit of play in our door sliders, so getting the placement of the catch was key. I got lucky.
<Learn from my mistakes notes>
I did pretty much all of the placement and measuring from the inside of the door, finally got comfortable where I was going to put it, and drilled the holes. I slid open the door to "dry fit" the mechanism, and found that I'd drilled the holes about 1/8" too high, so that the outside/user-face of the 150 overlapped part of the door grab rail baseplate. And you can't cut chrome, or stainless, or whatever the rail is made of.
So I ended up using part of the included plastic spacers to shim the faceplate out, and cut a notch in the spacer to fit around the baseplate. It's not noticeable to anyone but me, but it did piss me off for not triple-checking my placement before drilling.
Post some pics, love to see - Todd
Fairly straightforward design. As others have said, Tom at Good Windlass knows what he’s talking about and he is easy to deal with. FYI, you did see that there is oil inside the housing? Put down towels or something when opening it. Ask me how I know
I don’t know the grade, or amount it takes, but if you do open it, may as well change it. Definitely get whatever parts Tom recommends. Cheap peace of mind for when you REALLY need it to operate properly.
Quick update, and thank you so much for your input and help:
Removed the top, box knife and needle nose pliers, and I now have 150+ foot of anchor rope at home waiting to be reattached to the hardware. Seriously, sir, thanks for your help!
sws01
Member
- Aug 4, 2020
- 35
- Boat Info
- 1994 Sea Ray 400 Express Cruiser
- Engines
- 7.4L Bluewater Mercruisers
So, you must be "good" if the Boss is pleased with the finish and there's less moisture damage.
jonsm114
Active Member
Problematic but pretty common. Looked at 14 400ECs and would bet one third or more had fractured seat backs.
Spent our first weekend out this past weekend, and we noticed the helm bench seat seemed to lean back more that what seemed normal. Not uncomfortable to sit in, but it leaned back far enough that sitting on the rear-facing bench behind it was not real feasible. Your head bumped the seat back before you could lean all the way back.
This looks like a common issue? And the only way to fix it is to dismantle the seat for repairs?
Thanks - Todd
Todd,
Your seat sounds like it has the typical cracked molded frame. I made some comments above about my repair. Check it out and the link to a website about products and process to use to fix. If seat fails completely while sitting in it, the vinyl will rip and be more costly to fix not to mention the potential for injury to you or other person sitting in seat if you go rolling aft into the back of the cockpit.
