Uplate
New Member
- Oct 13, 2008
- 977
- Boat Info
- 1998 Sea Ray Sundancer 310
Westebeke 4KW Generator
- Engines
- Twin 5.7 Mercruiser Carbuerated.
Alpha 1 Drives
Thought I might share my experience:
Owned my boat for two years and all is well. Planes and runs great. I did start to notice that I was loosing power with the hole shot. Sounded like and over reving type of scenario, although engine RPM's did not indicate an over rev situation.
Last couple of times it happened I backed off, made sure both drives were full down, and then proceeded to go on plane as normal. All is well.
Next outing I went to go on plane and heard a load knocking sound that I have never heard before. Backed off and idled back to dock. Had mechanic come out to boat to diagnose and he noticed port drive had the Rackety Rack sound when putting iit in gear. He thought my problem was in the drive.
$2800 for a new lower unit from SEI on port side, including new gimbal bearings on both, plus all new zincs, bellows, plus new outdrive trim indicators (they never did work since I bought the boat) and new impeller on starboard drive.
So we launched and I ran for about an hour during the breakin period of the new lower end drive and decided to give it some throttle....Knocking as before. Same problem, althought the shifting was noticabley better with the new lower unit and no rakety rack sound when shifting.
Sea trialed with the mechanic and he said we needed to compression test the port engine which was causing the knock. cylinder #5 had 0 compression. Time to pull it out to diagnose. Now we found that there was a hole in the head and slightly into the block about 1/4" between #5 and #7. It looked like someone had almost crossed drilled a cavity between the two cylinders and ate into the head, gasket, and block. Ordered an new reman engine from Jasper.
While the port engine was out, I had told mechanic that there had been a slight oil leak from starboard engine where the remote oil filter connects to the block, I asked him to check it. He then proceeded to call me and come down to take a look where the block had been cracked and leaking water. It was only a matter of time until this was an issue although the engine ran fine.
So while we are at it, replace both.
I have run a Boatsafe heater for the two seasons I have owned the boat and have only winterized the FW and AC systems and not the engines. My temp monitor indicated that indeed it did get down to 19 degrees a few days (boat stay in water). the starborad issue seemed to be indicative of a freeze issue. It may have been ther when I bought it, or might have happened since installing the Boatsafe.
So the end of the story is that I have now spent almost $14K and will certainly both winterize engines and keep the Boatsafe running as usual.
At least I will now know the maintainence history of the engines and have an 18 month warranty on both.
Somehow I thought I would last longer than 520 hours on the motors. Perhaps this time I will.
We replaced the engine on our bow rider at 420 hours with a Grooms reman. We went through three engines in one year until we got one to stick. I did not want to go the Grooms route again on the 310.
Perhaps this story can be of some use to other boaters...mostly...boating ain't CHEAP! but there is nothing like it for family fun and bonding.
Owned my boat for two years and all is well. Planes and runs great. I did start to notice that I was loosing power with the hole shot. Sounded like and over reving type of scenario, although engine RPM's did not indicate an over rev situation.
Last couple of times it happened I backed off, made sure both drives were full down, and then proceeded to go on plane as normal. All is well.
Next outing I went to go on plane and heard a load knocking sound that I have never heard before. Backed off and idled back to dock. Had mechanic come out to boat to diagnose and he noticed port drive had the Rackety Rack sound when putting iit in gear. He thought my problem was in the drive.
$2800 for a new lower unit from SEI on port side, including new gimbal bearings on both, plus all new zincs, bellows, plus new outdrive trim indicators (they never did work since I bought the boat) and new impeller on starboard drive.
So we launched and I ran for about an hour during the breakin period of the new lower end drive and decided to give it some throttle....Knocking as before. Same problem, althought the shifting was noticabley better with the new lower unit and no rakety rack sound when shifting.
Sea trialed with the mechanic and he said we needed to compression test the port engine which was causing the knock. cylinder #5 had 0 compression. Time to pull it out to diagnose. Now we found that there was a hole in the head and slightly into the block about 1/4" between #5 and #7. It looked like someone had almost crossed drilled a cavity between the two cylinders and ate into the head, gasket, and block. Ordered an new reman engine from Jasper.
While the port engine was out, I had told mechanic that there had been a slight oil leak from starboard engine where the remote oil filter connects to the block, I asked him to check it. He then proceeded to call me and come down to take a look where the block had been cracked and leaking water. It was only a matter of time until this was an issue although the engine ran fine.
So while we are at it, replace both.
I have run a Boatsafe heater for the two seasons I have owned the boat and have only winterized the FW and AC systems and not the engines. My temp monitor indicated that indeed it did get down to 19 degrees a few days (boat stay in water). the starborad issue seemed to be indicative of a freeze issue. It may have been ther when I bought it, or might have happened since installing the Boatsafe.
So the end of the story is that I have now spent almost $14K and will certainly both winterize engines and keep the Boatsafe running as usual.
At least I will now know the maintainence history of the engines and have an 18 month warranty on both.
Somehow I thought I would last longer than 520 hours on the motors. Perhaps this time I will.
We replaced the engine on our bow rider at 420 hours with a Grooms reman. We went through three engines in one year until we got one to stick. I did not want to go the Grooms route again on the 310.
Perhaps this story can be of some use to other boaters...mostly...boating ain't CHEAP! but there is nothing like it for family fun and bonding.
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