Pacemaker Boats

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Well, I am getting so sick of these engines. Saturdays run was going great, out about 4 miles and the port oil pressure gage starts dropping pressure, down to 20 psi at 3000 rpm, engine running at 160F, no noise nothing. I kill the engine and get to the ledge and anchor for 4 - 5 hours of fishing. Start both engines and haul anchor for run back to slip, no problems, but port oil pressure gage reading 0 psi, check engine and all seems ok so start the run back holding 3000 rpm both engines when port engine rpm starts to drop and noticeable change in sound, drop rpm down to 2000 rpm and all seems normal. Had crew open engine hatch and a ton oil smoke comes drifting out. Oil is blowing out of dipstick tube. I killed the engine and limped back in on stbd engine till back in river. I then started the port engine and backed into slip. On sunday, I check out the engine and oil is down 1 quart, no water in oil so I figure head gasket is good. I add the quart of oil, start engine and oil pressure gage is reading 40 psi, hmmmm, I then raise the rpm up to 1500 and hear a lower end knock, which gets louder as the engine warms up. At idle, engine sounds normal doesnt overheat or make any noise, and no oil blows out of dipstick tube. Now to me, if the oil pan was presurized then there is a hole in a piston or gasket and it should blow the oil out even at idle. If a main bearing went, then the oil pressure should be low and the engine should be hotter than normal. Not the case here. So now many question to Leo Mike and everyone else. Has this ever happened to you guys? I had the boat pulled today and will be pulling the engine up and droping the pan to inspect the bearings, but was wondering about the need to pull other things like heads and timing chain cover

[Anonymous]

oil pump ? i'm no mechanic but this was an answer i had gotten.

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Thanks for the response, I will check that also. What continues to baffle me is why the oil was blowing out of the dipstick tube on the run back to the dock and not when I ran it the next day. Other people have told me the timing gear may have slipped a tooth and is causing the pressure to go through an open valve, but the dull knock and the fact the engine purrs at idle without so much as a skip leads me to think its something else.

[Anonymous]

it would be interesting to find out what gremlin is at work here for future reference ,,,,,i say gritting my teeth.

[rebait]

Before you pull the engine, I would do a compression test. If a cylinder is low, squirt some oil in the cylinder and if it comes up it would be rings. If not it could be a piston or valve problem. You just gave all the symptoms that I had with my Wahoo and my Crusader 270 (a 350 Chevy). When I switched the oil pan and windage tray, I did a pressure test on the bad cylinder and the pressure came out of the bottom end not out of the exhaust or intake port on the head. This tells me that it is in the lower end. When I do take it apart, I will post what I found. Good Luck, John

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Yeah, I dont thinks I'm going to get off easy this time. Thats why I had the boat pulled. Thanks for the compression idea, that'll tell me where to look first. I think I might have spun a bearing or one of the bearing caps wasnt torqued down right. These engines were built by a guy who was supposed to be good, but from all that I have had to fix, you wouldnt know he knew what he was doing. I will see thursday about the compression tests and get back with the results

[leokow]

First , I am really sorry to hear that you are having these kind of problems with your engines.
But that's not helping to solve anything, so , 1st, I agree with John , compression test is absolutely first. Now if you had a hole in a piston you would get gas into your crankcase and when that cylinder fired you would hear a real nice bang, I've been there, so I don't think you did that.
Next , you have a PCV line coming from your valve cover to the bottom of the carb, this takes the the smoke and pressue that builds up in the crankcase and re burns it thru the carb base. Pull it out of the valve cover and shake it , it should rattle like a ball in a spray paint can, if it doesn't then it's bad and it's letting pressure build up in your pan and forcing oil out of the dipstick.PCV (positive crankcase ventilation) hope that's your problem, no engine pulling. Now that test should be the first thing you do , then the compression test if that checks out. When you do the compression test , pull all the plugs, crank her at least 4 to 5 times and record the numbers,they should all be within 10% of each other, if there's a low one squirt an ounce of oil in the cylinder and crank it again, if it gets better them you most likely have broken some rings and your putting pressure into the pan and burning oil at the same time,sorry but ,engine comes out if this happens. Now if the compression is bad on one or two and the oil doesn't help your problem is in the valves, you either bent a push rod or valve stem and it's not seating properly, oil is going past the valve guides and into the cylinder and getting burned,but that doesn't account for the oil coming ou tof the dip stick, so I don't think that's your problem. The knock bothers me, does the knock speed up if you increase the RPM's, if so then it's a connecting rod bearing if it stays kind of steady and hard it's most likely a main, but again I would lean toward the connecting rod. Let me know what's going on, call me if you want 215-605-3527 Cell. Don't pull that engine untill you've done the tests,please.
My cell long distance is free and I have tons of minutes so if need be call me and I'll call you back. talk to you later...Leo

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Leo, the noise seems to get louder when the rpms are increased and as the engine warms up cant really say if it gets faster since I shut her down before anything blew. At idle you cant hear anything knocking until the rpms are brought up to around 1500, then the knocking begins. Oil pressure is steady at 40 psi which seems to indicate a main bearing since it should also go up when the rpms go up. I first thought the low oil pressure was a bad gage or wire since the engine wasnt getting hot or noisy. I really dont want to pull the engine just yet. A little history of this engine. When I first put it in and filled the oil and anti-freeze, the antifreeze ended up in the oil pan during the first run of the engine ( warm up, adjust timing and carb) The engine was running hot so I shut it down and let it cool overnight. The next day i checked the dipstick and the oil level was higher than full. The heat exchanger was down about a quart, so I pumped the oil out and found the anti-freeze. I pulled the intake and it looked like the gasket was leaking. I replaced the gasket and flushed the motor with marvel mystery oil and regular oil 5 times, pulling the drain plug each time letting the oil drip into the drain pans. I didnt see anymore water in the oil and figured the problem was fixed. The mechanic at the club is the one who thinks its a head gasket leaking. He feels that was part of my problem with the water leak and now the engine compression keeps the water out but is presurizing the oil pan. I'm really not sure until I can get there thursday
Terry

[leokow]

I guess your mechanic at the club and I will just have to agree to disagree. Compression from the engine won't keep the anti freeze out of the oil,what it will do is bleed exhaust gasses into the antifreeze and make it overheat, but you said it didn't overheat, so I don't think it's a head gasket. The scenario that you first explained to me about the intake manifold gasket seeems to be a much more logical reason for anti freeze ending up in the oil pan, plus once you repaired it everything has been fine, head gaskets don't fix themselves and they won't make your engine knock. Next if the knocking increases quickly with an increase in Rpm's then I'm sorry to say it sounds like a conecting rod bearing.Also you may have two problems the bearing and a ring or something that is allowing compression to get into the pan,enough so that it pushes oil out of the dip stick.
Considering what has already happened to you're one engine, with the cam gear bolts coming loose and hitting the cover, I don't have too much faith in the guy that rebuilt those engines. If he left those bolts loose then the same could be true of the crank bolts, I'm wondering if this guy even has a torque wrench or realizes that those specs for tightening are there for a reason.
I really feel bad about this, Terry, but I believe that you are going to have to pull this engine and the pan, I really wouldn't be suprised if you find some loose rod bolts, BTW, is this the same one that had the cam gear bolt problem ?
The first engine I had done from an independent rebuilder up in Monmouth NJ, put the screws to me real good when I had the hole in the piston when I first bought overdue, he had the engine for three months over the winter and finally in March I had to go the and get the remaining parts and finish putting it together myself, eventually if failed just about everywhere it could and I ended up trashing it and buying a new long block the following year.
I haven't really seen many people that have had very good luck buying engines fron independent garages that call themselves rebuilders. It seems as though there idea of rebuilding is to clean the engine find the part that went bad replace that and then put in a new set of gaskets, paint it and its rebuilt.
I bought my last one from that place in Harkers Island ,Carolina, there on the web as ebasicpower .com, they have stood by everything I have ever gotten from them and their engine guarantee is 2 years.
That last bit of info was just for future use, I sincerely hope you don't need to buy another engine, but if this is what I think it is , your going to have to go over everything in it while you have it out.
Anyone can make a mistake , and forget to tighten a bolt , but when it's your business to build engines you should at least have the decency to accept that you made a mistake when you found the loose bolts and make good on it, not give you the answer that he did. Sorry to bring up old wounds , but that stuff really pisses me off, it's no wonder everyone thinks mechanics are thieves.
OK, sorry for the long windedness but like you when it's in my ball park, I tend to get carried away. Let me know what you find, ok ? Good luck ..Leo

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Yeah, I dont have much faith in the guys work either. This engine didnt have the loose bolts on the timing gear. that was the stbd engine. This engine is the one that always gave me trouble with the starter and slow spinning. makes me wonder if the 2 are related ( the knock and the starting problem). I've bought from ebasicpower and michiganmotorz before. I dont know which way I'm gonna go until I see what happened. Its all wet from the downpour last night, might not get down until later this afternoon to work on it, so I'll check back later

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OK, checked the engine yesterday. The pcv valve has no rattle, so I will change that. Pulled the plugs, #2 had some black soot that blew right off but is still slightly black and not the light colored glaze the other 7 have. Compression tests shows 150 on all 8 cylinders. Oil is clear and no signs of water intrusion. The problem is most likely a loose or spun rod bearing. My problem is that in every other engine I've seen with a bad rod bearing is that the knock is loudest at idle and harder to hear when the engine speed is increased, my engine has no noise at idle. The lift is available so I'll start unhooking things tomorrow to pull the engine up.

[leokow]

Ususally a spun rod bearing will be loud at idle if it's totally gone, but if it's not completly gone when you give it gas it will sound like a machine gun for about a minute, the faster the engine spins the louder and more persistent the knock at idle it is slower and sometimes dissapears altogether.Sounds to me like that's may be your problem , the PVC may take care of the oil blow back...good luck ....Today I'm finally going fishing for the first time this year , if I have to row the kids next door's canoe out to the reef. Let you know !...Leo

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Leo,
Hope you catch a boatful of fish, I'll be down unhooking everything to lift the engine and tranny out (this way I dont have to unhook the cooling lines or lose fluid) Hope to have the engine up and the bad bearing out so I can see if its standard or oversize.
Terry

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Engine is out, oil pan dropped and bearings inspected. bearing caps felt tight but I could wiggle them and when the torque wrench was put on set at 45 ft lbs, the nuts turned at least a 1/4 turn before the torque wrench clicked. Main bearings were all tight. I have to see if the rod bearings were std, .010,.020 or .030 and will replace them all since I have the engine open.
Nothing broken or no cracks in the block. Thanks Leo for the info on the bearings

[leokow]

Terry, don't know if I caught you in time, but if you haven't puled the bearing caps yet, bring them donw onw at a time turning the crank , when you get to the bottom go just a bit more then see if you can get any movement up or down.
I would do the end ones first, if you can't find any movement then remove the caps one at a time, mark them for cylinder and top or bottom, just so you can match them up with the crank journal later. They should be stamped for size... std. is usually blank , the others are marked on the back , 10,20,or 30.If your getting the knid of knock you decsribed to me ,you won't have any problem finding the bad one, it'll probably be copper colored and smashed instead of the silver color of babbit.
The biggest problem is going to be repairing the crank journal once you find the bad one . If it's not too bad you can use emery paper to get the scratches out , and imperfection left on the crank will come back to haunt you real fast, plus you'll need to borrow a caliper to see if the journal got battered out of round in any way.
The little bit of turning on the torque wrench doesn't sound to meike enough to cause your trouble, plus all of them were the same and you only had one knock, your compression was great so I think the PVC will fix the blow back. Something made that bearing go bad, you may have to drop the crank and have it checked out or you could possibly be doing this again in 6 months. If it spun and the oil hole got blocked , that may be all that was wrong , but if they all come out aligned then there is another problem, they just don't go bad for no reason, sorry for the lousy news, but I don't want to see you having to do this again.

My fishing trip came out OK, 1/6 dozen fluke and only one throw back all the rest from 17 and a 1/4 to 20 inches. Boat ran great, no complaints.
Going to give the weakies a try later in the week up the Mullica river.

Let me know how you make out with the boat, Saw Shawn's boat today, it really looks terrific, he and his wife did a beautiful job on her.
I'll talk to you later..good luck ...Leo

[Anonymous]

guy's i may have fallen out of my tree here ,is that green dental floss looking gap tape involved here too? i mean when you put thing's back together,i seem to remember from shop class that tape for tolerence's. i passed shop class but did'nt retain much.so like i said i could be way off base.

[rebait]

Terry,

I would say that you have found the culprit. Hopefully the damage is minimal.

Good Luck, John

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Well with the rain and heat wave, all I managed to do is get the engine out and sitting on the fantail. Leo, the movement is sideways on pistons, 4,6,7 and 8. When I hit # 4 with the torque wrench it was to see what the torque was that the guy who built the engines used. from what happened, I can assume he didnt go to 45 ft/lbs like my book says. Now i havent taken any of the caps off because it was near the time I had to leave and I didnt want to hurry and make any mistakes. Yesterday, I helped a buddy go get a dune buggy he bought home so tonight is bearing cap removal night. As for something else being bad, I agree. #2 sparkplug looking different (sooty and not light colored glazed) tells me that something else is funny with this engine. Since I have to redo the bearings, I was gonna loosen all of the valves and tighten them per my repair book ( certain valves on #1 TDC and the rest with #6 on TDC). From what I remember from saturday, all of the caps were blank meaning std bearings. The crankshaft was supposed to be a new iron nodular crank with clevite bearings and hopefully its ok and the only problem was the bearing caps not being torqued correctly

[leokow]

I wouldn't fool with the valves until you get the knock straightened out first . No need to be working on the bottom and the top of the engine.
Plus you can do the valves if they need it after things are fixed. It's hard for me to believe that that little bif of low torque caused that knock.
Did you find any bad bearings when you dropped the caps ? The stamping for the size of the bearings would be on the rear of the bearing half shell itself,not on the cap, the cap would remain the same size , where they make up the difference is in the thickness of the bearing shell itself. They turn the crank journal down however many thousandths and then make up the difference with a thicker bearing shell. As you pull the caps get some pieces of plastic hose to put over the connecting rod bolts so you don't nick any of the good crank journals while you are turning it to get at other bearings, then remove the plastic as you replace the caps. The new pvc will probably take care of your sooted up plug. The valves are hydraulic lifters so unless they are clacking I wouldn't mess with them.
I have a feeling you are going to find a badly scored bearing and hopefully and not too badly scratched crank journal that you can clean up sufficiently that it wil be usable and last a long time after you re assemble the engine, otherwise you'll have to take the crank to get turned down and use oversize bearings or get a new crank and bearings. Take your time, a little nick can come back to haunt you....Good luck ...Leo

[merwin10]

Hi Terry -

None of this explains the blow-by! But I would suspect #2 has some bad rings - worn compression rings would allow the compress gases to excape into the engines lower area pressurizing it! you may even have a bad wrist pin keep in mind that the wrist pin gets its oil from the connting rod if the torque is not correct the oil pressure will not reach the wrist pin steel on aluminum alloy with no oil will cause the issue you describe - which means you are going to have to pull the heads - you need to look at the piston skirt closely if the rings are bad or the wrist pin has worn the piston the skirt will have scrapes in the verticle orientation - meaning that the piston is hitting the cylinder wall - It is not a good thing when oil pressure drops like that!

Just keep in mind the pressure it can only come from certain areas - and worn rings are the most common! You have to have allot of pressure to have oil coming out the dip stick and since #2 spark plug is sooty means it was not getting complete compression to fire - Light brown is the color you are looking for! A compreesion check would have told you if bad rings where on #2 - Low commpression dry then put some oil in the spark plug hole if compression rises then you have bad rings -

Good Luck!

Mike -
_________________
"Best part of Boating -- is the people you meet"

[leokow]

Mike, you missed part of Terry's posts, he took compression tests and had 150 accross the board, however the PVC valve was clogged solid, no rattle when he shook it, that would account for excess pressure in the pan and force oil out of the dip stick tube, I went over the oil thing with him earlier , but with the compression ok their wasn't any reason to do it.
However, I do agree with you about the wrist pin, that could also cause the knock and the lower oil pressure but I went to the rod bearings first because I have found them to fail much more often than a wrist pin.
Just trying to bring you up to date and by no means trying to correct you so please don't take it that way, you know I put your opinions at the top of the list when it comes to this stuff, have a good day...Leo

[leokow]

Excentric 40, your not too far out of your tree with that green tape. What it's commonly used for is to check the proper clearance when you are putting things back together after a rebuild. It comes in varying thickness and some of them you tighten down then take it apart and measure the width and it tells you what clearance you have ,my mind is going and for the life of me I can't think of the name of the stuff, but your on the right track....Have a good one ...Leo

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well I didnt get down to the boat again last night so I'm still waiting to find out. Mike I turned the crankshaft with the oil pan off and didnt see anything amiss with the pistons or rods (of course I havent removed the bearing caps yet). With the compression readings being what my book says they should be at cranking speed (150) I can rule out the rings or a hung valve. Its possible I have a bad spark plug wire but with the engine not missing a beat I dont think so, it could also be a bad plug, gap too far apart etc. I also want to check out the flex plate after I redo the bearings since that was the original one from the old engines and it could have issues from sitting for over 10 years before i saved the boat from the junkpile. This is the plate that bolts to the flywheel and then the tranny slids onto it through the shaft splines in the middle. I think this could also be a reason for the noise at higher RPM and nothing at idle. In reality, I might have pulled the boat a little too quickly, but I'm not ready to lay out more money for engines. I really dont have a lot of confidence in these engines since the guy who built them forgot some things and didnt put everything together right in the first place. I came within a heartbeat of jumping on a matched set of Crusader 454's with trannys for $5500 and still have a line on another std rotation 350 mercrusier engine that runs great. Someone told me I should have rechecked all of the torque bolts during the winter since the engines were rebuilt and I had a few hours of break-in time on them but I've never heard of having to re-torque bearings before. I did recheck the manifold and exhaust bolts over the winter and everything was good. A little more info about what happened, I was running at 3400 rpm when I felt and heard the engine losing power, checking the tach showed the needle bouncing between 2000 and 3400 rpm, oil presure gage reading 20 psi, temp at 160F, amps at 14 volts all except oil were normal readings, slowed the boat down, tach leved out, oil pressure steady at 20 psi. No engine noise, no increase in temp and no alarms going off. At this point I figure its an electrical or sender problem and will have to check when I get back to the slip. I increase the speed back to 3400 RPM and for about 15 secomds all seems normal, then noticeable drop in engine power and sound. have a friend open the engine hatch and have smoke bellowing out from engine compartment. No halon going off, so I fire up blower to find out smoke is coming from stbd exhaust manifold and oil dipstick is covered. I kill the engine and turn helm over to my son. We then grab the rags and wipe up everything and then have my son restart the engine. At this point, the oil gage is reading zero psi yet engine sounds normal ( I thought it was a little louder than normal but the stbd engine was running and I couldnt really tell for sure). I have my son bring up the R's on the engine and can see the oil blowing out of the dipstick tube. We then killed the engine and came in on the stbd engine. As I got in the river, I restarted the port engine to use for docking and everything seem ok, oil pressure was still 0 psi. Tied up the boat, washed her down and left until the next day. Checked the oil and was down 1 quart, topped it off and fired up the engine. 40 psi on oil gage at idle, no engine noise, no oil blowing out of dipstick tube, Ok I figure electrical problem, but decided to bring up engine speed to see if the situation happens again. At about 1400 1500 RPm engine has slight noise not heard before. I come down off of bridge and start listening with my handy screwdriver for where the noise is coming from and realize its getting louder. I go back up on bridge and oil is still 40 psi, temp, tach and volts all normal, no alarms going off. I drop the engine back down to idel and no noise at all. At this point I figure better safe than sorry and arrange to have the boat pulled so i can lift the engine out for full inspection. After the engine was out and still in the air, I pulled the drain plug and let all of the oil drain into a clean bucket. I was looking of the silver which would tell me bearings were being worn. didnt see any nor did I see any water, oil was just a little black. So, Now everyone knows where i'm at and what I gotta do. My instinct is telling me that with the clogged PCV valves and fairly new rings, the small amount of blow-by built up pressure in the oil pan and was interfereing with the oil pump from pumping enough oil and thats why the pressure was dropping. Now another tidbit for everyone repowering their boat. To save a little money, I cleaned the PCV valves and re-used them since they rattled when I originally shook them, yep for less than $10 I am now docked on land when the fish are all over the place. Instead of being out on the water fishing in a nice breeze, I'll be laying on my back under the engine in the hot sun doing repairs. Mu only solace is that the problem also showed me a bigger potential problem which hopefully is easily fixed (loose rod bearing caps)
Terry

[merwin10]

Leo in my haste to post I DID NOT catch the plugged PCV valve! Guess that could explain some pressure build up but enough to blow oil out the dip stick HMMMM! No don't worry about correction! i Just trying to cover all the bases.

Terry - You have some things that seem inconsistant! I would worry about oil pressure dropping to zero then OK later! Either there is a loose wire or you did drop oil pressure! Might want to install a mechanical gauge on the engine.


Good Luck!

Mike -
_________________
"Best part of Boating -- is the people you meet"

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Got to the boat and pulled the rod bearings tonight can everyone hear taps playing in the background? seems there is some very wrong with the engine, all front 4 pistons had wiped rod bearings, #1 had scored the journal on the crank, didnt pull the main bearings was just too heartbroken after seeing the rod bearings. now comes decision time, rebuild what i got or get another short block, either way it looks like my season is on hold for a while

[Anonymous]

dang it Terry, this whole mess blow's for you i'm sure. nothin like having a boat you cant use.{something i seem to be growing use to}. rebuild verse's new lotta dough either way, with the new at least you know what you have. to me a rebuild would recondition a lot but open's a door to what the fresh work's may do to some of the older stuff left.i could only guess but new power pressure's and torque on the old part's may have you changeing out thing's later unseen now, very similar to plumbing i would have to say,touch a fitting here your fixing something else down the line. i really feel for ya mr. i cant put in this year not because of the boat for a change but $$$, it's freakin heart breaking really,i've rebuilt my carb's, and there she sit's high and dry.although, i was in the water on the 4th. bittersweet kind of, a neighboring town had a cardboard boat race ,,well i entered it, built a displacement hull 118" from bow tip to transom,trying to mimick our pace,well all the other boats resembled 6' kyack's,long story short i took second place!!!! much to everyone's surprise, including me, since i had dressed the part of a 60's yacht'smen the whole place got some good laugh's,but the underdog did it. yes cardboard will float for a bit if you apply enough melted toilet wax ring's to it. a lot of fun , but it does'nt match being on the real thing. best of luck to ya in the engine endevour.

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The parts on this engine are still new, less than 20 hrs. Forget about a warrentee, the guy who rebuilt them has closed shop and gone to places unknown. My biggest concern isnt the effect of a new crank and bearings but why did they go so quickly. Judging by the way the bearings looked, #1 went first causing excessive heat buildup then #2, followed by #'s 3 and 4. The bearing on #1 was so bad the edge of the bearing was sticking out of the bearing cap and was all chewed up. Bearings 3 and 4 were spun, didnt wear the crank journal but were covered with burnt oil. In hindsight, I should have suspected something was wrong last year when this motor started spinning slow. I went after the starter figuring that was the problem, now I'm wondering if the slow spinning was caused by bad bearings causing the starter to have to work harder to spin the motor. Right now I'm leaning towards dropping in a used motor for the rest of the season and spending the winter re-working all of my good parts into a new shortblock

[merwin10]

Terry - with all the bad rod bearings you are going to find other issues farther up stream! Remember where the oil for the wrist pins and cylinders comes from - Right! From the rod bearing up the rod to the wrist pins - No oil means lots of wear there - Steel on aluminum with high heat - Not a good thing at all - I would recommend a complete rebuilt as a bare minimum, else you will have it out later on for another issue.

Sorry to hear of your misfortune!

MIKE -
_________________
"Best part of Boating -- is the people you meet"

[leokow]

Damn Terry, I'm really sorry to hear about what you've found. Don't feel bad about the PVC , you didn't do anything to it. it was the bearings burning up oil that kept clogging the PVC, if everythings working right usually washing it out until you hear the rattle will do the trick.
From the way you described things to me it sure sounded like rod bearings, I was hoping I was wrong or that it was only one end or the other.
Terry, I know you're not going to like this but please,don't try repairing that engine , unless you are prepared to totally have it boiled out and rebuilt from top to bottom. The metal from those bearings is everyplace the oil goes, there is literally no way you can get it all out without having it boiled out professionally. I've tried to do it more than once when I used to race cars, it just doesn't work, I always ended up blowing something else out later on because of some lousy little piece of residual metal getting caught in a bearing later on.
I know it's tough but it's really no more expensive to buy a long block than it is to totally rebuild what you have, check into ebasic and then if you like price out the parts to rebuild and you'll see there's not much difference in cost,not to mention labor.
If you just attempt to replace the crank and bearings , you still have metal everywhere in all the galleyways and oil passages and pumps.Let alone up in the rings ,etc.
What that guy did was probably exactly that and that's why it took a year to blow on you. One bad bearing you could possibly get away with but it seems to me that you've lost them all and there's just no real way to recover from that. If you can get a good used engine, then I'd take that , but don't waste your money trying to rebuild the one you have now.
I would suggest a short block but the metal filled oil is up in the heads too so it's just not worth it. It's enough work , do it right and be done with it once and for all.
When I did my second engine on overdue, I tried rebuilding the one I had until I priced the total parts against a block from ebasic and the block was actually cheaper and had a 2 year warrantee, so that's the way I went.
Again, I'm really sorry to hear of your troubles, but if you're going to fix it , do it the right way once and for all....Leo
As far as why the bearings went, it's usually number 1 or 8 that goes first then the rest follow like dominoes, as the metal from the first one gets pushed thru the oil passages it acts like an abrasive on the rest of the parts,and he probably just replaced parts with new ones and figured that would be good enough,the smallest nick on a crank journal is enough to destroy the bearing over a very short period of time and like I said earlier the first one is just the beginning then the rest follow.
Remember , you said you were wondering why they were so cheap, well, unfortunately , now you know. Again, I really feel terrible, if there's anything I can do please let me know...Leo

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yeah, I feel the same way, the engine is a paperweight. I'll salvage the heads ( i can take them apart and have them cleand at work, then install new seals since the valves themselves will still be good), intake, coil, distributer, water pump, starter, flywheel, lifters (maybe) and the pistons but not the piston rods. I'm negotiating with someone who has 2 matched mercruiser 350s with trannys. They are complete with closed cooling systems. They were new and used one season, then winterized and fogged and then the boat owner died. The boat sat for a few years and the engines were then pulled and stored for a few more years. I'm negotiating for a lower price since I think they will need a complete rebuild, but I will basically only need the gasket set and front and rear seals since I can use the top end from my engine. I figure I'll have to do a rebuild anyway so if I can reach a decent price for both, I'll rebuild the port engine now and then during the off season, I'll rebuild the stbd one so that I'll have the matched set in my boat. This leaves me with a few good extra parts if everything works out. I'll have 2 extra closed cooling systems, extra flywheels, extra starters, extra manifolds intake and exhaust, oil pans and the best part 2 extra trannys. selling these off will help me recover some of the lost money. If I cant reach an agreement with the guy, then its a new shortblock from michiganmotorz.com

[leokow]

Terry, if those engines were taken care of the way you say they were then you may not have to rebuild them at all. He didn't run them long enough to do anything to them before they were put away , If I were you and you make a deal , I would just pull the plugs and take a compression test. If that checks out then I would honestly consider just putting them in.
I normally use the compression test as my first check on an engine that's been sitting because it's the rings that usually clog up and stick and the compression is what suffers first. Also this way you'll be turning the engines over without putting fire to them and all of a sudden a lot of pressure when they have been sittting for a long time. Pull the oil and filter and replace it, before you give it a try , there's no sense rebuilding something that's already been rebuilt. If you don't see any oil leaking from the ends where the seals are after the compression test and if it comes out ok, you just might be that lucky Irishman.
As far as your old engine, keep the heads and do what you said with them, plus all the accessories, but cam, lifters ,and push rods come as a package , trash them all. The pistons will be ok , less the rings, but any other place that oil went won't be worth messing with.Your lifters will be filled with contaminated oil.
Regardless, those engines sound like a good deal, providing the same guy that did yours isn't the one that did them.!! Good luck!!!
As far as your old engine, you didn't do all that damage this season, there's just too much of it. I would guess that it started last year with number 1 or 8 and proceeded from there, the symptoms were wierd but I can account for them ,when some of the bearings spun the oil holes were completely blocked off ,so zero pressure, then when they came around again the pressure returned, the only way for pressure to be released from the pan is thru the pvc , with that clogged you had extra hot and aerated oil from the bad bearings and compression that leaked past the rings not having anywhere to go except up the oil stick.

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Thanks Leo, The engines were new (not rebuilt) in 1998 and have not been used since the end of that season. I was going to pull the plugs spray in some wd-40 and spin them over by hand a few times just to lubricate the rings. I have a nice little tool that I use to pump oil through-out the engine. You pull the distributer, drop the end down that looks like a flat screwdriver into the slot on the oil pump, the spin it with a drill motor, this will pressurize all of the oil passages without spinning the bearings on the crankshaft. It will also show me any leaks. I figure the carbs will be shot due to gelled gas as well as the fuel pumps. Since mine are all new, I will use them as well as the raw water and block water pumps. I will also use my tranny cooler and heat exchanger since they are clean with new zincs. Right now, I'm still off his asking price by about $1000, so we will see. The beauty of getting both engines is that with all I've had go wrong, I no longer have any trust in the stbd engine. Having 2 matched engines is what I wanted in the beginning and thought I had. Even when I pulled the boat, the engines sounded real quiet at idle no idea at all of the damage going on in the lower end until I pulled them apart. Let this be an example of why you dont buy remanufactured engines, Mike said it once before and I learned it from the school of hard knocks, remanufactured engines are just new parts in an old block and they dont last long at all
My problem most likely started last year when the engine started spinning slow. Since I was still running the engines at low breakin rpms, I never had any indication of problems. On the 30th, I had 7 other people with me when we went out, stayed too late until the admiral called and reminded me about a birthday party we were supposed to go to. I hit her WOT and she was dancing on her fantail as we were skimming across the water, that is until the engine started dropping r's and oil pressure

[rebait]

Terry,

I agree with Leo. Don't fix it if it isn't broke. I had a 327 Chevy engine that was 1 of my engines in my 55. I built that engine in 1970, ran it about 2 miles at 1/4 mi increments. Pulled it to change classes. Fogged it and stored it. It followed me until 1997. I gave it to a friend of mine for his Bread Box Nova. He still cruises the street with it. Same seals, gaskets, etc. Do like Leo suggested and hopefully everything will check out fine. I will let you know what I find when I pull my 350 from the Wahoo apart.

Good Luck, John PS May the engine gremlins find out about the new engines when they are installed and running and they are too warm for them to touch them.

[leokow]

Terry, the fact that those engines are brand new and not rebuilt makes the deal even better, engines just don't go bad on their own, something has to be done or un-done to them for them to crap out.
That tool you have is a great little gadget and lets you get oil everywhere without turning the crank over on dry bearings.
Just a little aside for taking the distributor out of a GM style block without causing any timing problems when you re-install it.
You probably already know , but for everyone else it's probably worth posting. A GM distributor has a gear on the bottom , not like a chrysler that just has a slot type of affair that either lets you put the distributor in corrrect or completely backwards. If you take the cap off before you loosen the hold down bolt, and mark the position of the rotor, then loosen the the bolt and as you remove the distributor the rotor will turn about 3/4 of an inch you need to mark this spot also. Now you can go ahead and use the tool to spin the oil pump,afterward if you line up the rotor with the second mark, the distributor should slide back down and end up at the mark you made in the beginning. Now the timing should be right back in the correct place and you can tighten the bolt back down.
I don't agree with the guys trying to talk you out of these engines, especially knowing that the engines were brand new, unless they know something that we don't. Of course it up to you and it's your money and sweat that's going in to this, if they were rebuilt then I wouldn't even consider them, I'd just go to crusader and get new complete engines,do all the work and be done with it so I could used my boat ,but if they were new like you said then that really does change everything, especially if they were put away correctly and all of the accessories are in good working order, that will tell you alot about the inside. Good luck and let me know ...Leo

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Well, the 2 engines were not worth the trouble, so I passed them up. Spent yesterday pulling everything off the motor, heads look good, cam has no wear on lobes, timing chain and gears look great. SOB used diferent pistons, I have 1 piston thats different from the other 7. Water pump, oil pump, alternators, starter, exhausts all off. The main bearings were white but not wiped. Ordered rebuilt long block from Jasper manufacturing, so once it gets here and I have everything together, I'll be listing some parts like heads, cam and water pump
Terry

[leokow]

Terry, what you found makes sense, he's one of those guys that finds a broken motor ,fixes what's broken, replaces the bearings and such, gives it a coat of paint and PRESTO it's rebuilt!. That accounts for the one odd ball piston that you found, it probably had one blown piston originally and the rest of the damage came from after he gave it to you. Some small bits of metal were left in the passages and they worked there way loose and into your oil and eventually wiped out your bearings, it's really a shame ,but I've seen it happen a lot, that's what gives most of those independent rebuilders a bad name ,wether they deserve it or not.
You've got a good company with Jasper, I've dealt with them a lot and they put out a good product. Good luck with it.
BTW, what are your plans for the other engine? going to try to get thru the season and check it out in spring or over the winter? Or just keep going and hope for the best. Like John says, if it's not broke , don't fix it !
I wouldn't fool with it unless it gave me a reason too. Talk to you later...Leo

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I'm hoping that there is nothing else wrong with it. That was the one that had the loose cam gear bolts. It starts right up and sounds nice and quiet. I really dont want to have to pull it. I got an email from the moron who had a jasper motor for sale on ebay ( for those of you who dont know, I had originally tried to buy a rebuilt Jasper motor off ebay for $710, but the seller tried to extort twice the price and when I wouldn't go for it told me he was going to drag the motor behind his truck and then send me the pieces. He ended up calling me a lot of unrepeatable names and made referance to boaters in a not too nice manner) He actually had the gaul to send me an invoice for over $1200, this after I filed a complaint with the police for his email and with ebay. Imagine, he still thinks I would be dumb enough to send him money? I wish I could post his email, but this is a family site. Guy lives in Durand MI. and If you think about doing business with him, put your head down and run as fast as you can straight into the wall, it will be more satisfying. Only thing I got from him is the name Jasper Engines where I just ordered the new rebuilt

[rebait]

Terry,

That character from Mi. did not seem too stable and it may be a good thing you did not buy from him. We use Jasper engines along with factory rebuilds. At one time we did all of our rebuilding in house. We had problems with Jasper in the mid 1990's but they seemed to have cleared them up. This may be the way to go. As fate would have it, I am working again this Saturday. My Wahoo will be done for the fall stripers. I would have been done this past Sunday but a family "emergency" involving my mother knocked it out of the box.

Good Luck, John

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I couldnt believe ha was going to drag the engine behind his truck so it would be ruined, just because I wouldnt agree to pay twice what the auction went for. EBAY has reserve pricing where you set the minimum selling price and he didnt use that. I had asked for total with shipping and got his first email asking for more money. I reminded him that he agreed to sell at final bid when he listed with ebay and now he has to abide by the agreement, then I get an email laden with so much vulgarity that I went with it to the local police dept and filed a complaint. A few hours later I get an email with an invoice from him for the asking price plus $500 for shipping for a total of just over $1200. If he had sent that first, I would have gladly paid it since that price was still a steal. Now I wont send him a dime since he has already said he was going to damage the engine and it would show up busted in some way and he would claim the trucking company did the damage.
He really needs to seek professional help.
The jasper engine should be here within 10 days, if no problems with installation, I should be back in the water in early August, in time for fall stripers
Terry

[leokow]

Lucky Irishman, HUH ? I don't know where you find these guys, they seem to crawl out of the woodwork whenever you're looking for something ! The only thing lucky about this deal is that it fell apart before you got the engine and had another catastrophe.
You're right he should have put a reserve price on it and that would have been it, but he was actually going to smash it rather than stand by his deal ? I think I'll stay away from Ebay and stick with the companies that I know about, that's not the first time I've heard something crazy about that outfit. You're lucky he doesn't live closer to you ,Terry , He's liable to show up on your front lawn demanding his money, or something worse, unfortunately , there's a lot of sick people out there, that think they 're normal and everyone else is screwed up.
John's right about Jasper, we had some problems with them back in the 90's too,then their warrantee was only a year, but since then it appears they've fixed whatever was going on and now the warantee is up to 2 years,guess they're trying to re-instill the confidence back in their product.
The last couple of guys that I know that bought engines from them were very satisfied, so I'm pulling for you, Pal !
Are they going to deliver to the marina ? Because they don't normally deliver to residences, unless they've changed thier policy.
OK,Terry, good luck with everything and I'll talk to you again later, got both MRI's done yesterday, waiting to hear the results, probably going to tell me there's nothing in there , just like in my head ! C ya..Leo
Heading back to NJ,now , and going to try to get some fishing in.

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I had to give them my work address since there is a loading dock to save money on the shipping. Can you please explain why the cam numbers are so important? The Jasper guy told me that lift and duration specs could be determined from the cam number and that if they were different from the other engine it could cause problems. I cant seem to follow his explanation. I thought timing and carb settings were the big issue, again I'm not a mechanic and thats why I cant understand

[changeofpace]

My mistake, the engine has an 18 month warrenty, the 2 years was for stern drives

[leokow]

Terry, your gonna just love this, for the life of me I can't understand why this guy is making such a big deal out of the duration deal ! It's not like these two engines have to run in total syncronicity, or there will be some sort of catastraphic vibration problem ! They are for all intents and purposes two separate entities. They don't depend on each other for anything,other than being matched closely enough that one engine isn't so much more powerful that it creates a pulling problem to one side or the other. I've seen it done in very hi performance race cars ,the 1/4 mile jobs, or funny cars ,where they must be perfectly matched or the car will imediately jump to one side when the gas is floored, but not in a normal everyday boating application.
Maybe John, (REBAIT), knows something that I don't, but I can't follow this guys logic at all.
For my own opinion , I would almost bet that the cam is a stock one , with normal duration numbers for the valves. The guy thaat re did your engines wasn't out to spend an extra nickel on repaiing those things.
But if the guy is demanding the numbers before he does anything, then pull the the damn cam and give them to him, you may not even have to do that , if I remember right the numbers should be on one of the ends.

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When I first went to the site and filled out the info request, I wasnt sure about the horsepower. When I got called I told Jasper I thought the horsepower rating was 300 and that the guy I bought them had said he wanted cam specs from my old motors which were 307 small blocks. This is why he asked for the cam numbers I think, since its possible I have 350's with 307 cams (who know what the other engine guy did). I pulled the cam and sent him all of the numbers and asked if I could put my cam in their engine. 2 things came out of that. 1)The engine would no longer be gaurenteed since it would not be original and 2) I could buy just a short block and add my cam, but the warentee would only be 6 months. I didnt want to go with a short warentee, so I went with what they call a complete engine which is what most people call a long block.
I got a call from the guy with the twin 350's, he asked if I wanted them for a rebuild project for the winter, said make him an offer. I'm kind of thinking about it so that I would have a backup stbd engine in case it decides to go south like the port one did. The admiral is all up in arms, said she doesnt want the garage turnng into a boat shop any more. The stbd engine is complete but doesnt turn at all. I'd like to take the tranny off and see if I could break it free, but I know the whole engine would have to be torn down. I'm still trying to decide. If I offer him fair value for the trannys, then sell them for the engine price it would be a good deal. still thinking about it
Terry

[rebait]

Terry, Leo,

After reading about the cam numbers and the like, I tried to call a couple of friends of mine that are marine mechanics and know what they are talking about. I had no answer at either house. The only reason why that I can figure why he wanted the cam numbers is that both engines would pull the same at the same rpms, eliminating any complaints such as the new engine is not as strong as the other. You would be surprised what people complain about. At work we have linemen complain that their bucket truck does not rotate as fast as the other guy's. Judging from your posts you seem to have a level head and don't abuse or push your boat and if you have to throttle the port engine 100 rpms more than the starboard engine you would be fine with it. In the 70's, ( Boy am I dating myself ) when I had my boat in a marina on Raritan Bay, I saw some crazy engine combinations, that were used in the local built Jersey Skiffs. The strangest one was a skiff about 26 foot. It had twin inboard engines. The starboard was a small block Chevy and the port was a inline 6 cyl. Ford. He was 2 slips away from me. He was the original owner and these engines were installed by the builder. I can't recall who the builder was. He would run both engines when operating normally. When he was trolling he would run the 6, to keep it slow enough. I thought that that was strange but I saw numerous boats just as that one from different buiders. So Terry, I have to agree with Leo that it is not that critical. When I hear back from my friends, I will post their replies.
As for the twin Mercruisers, I would only take them both, if I could get them for the price that you feel 1 transmission is worth. They have been sitting for a number of years and you are actually doing him a favor taking these off his hands because no one else has shown any interest in them and he called you. You can always walk away and he may take your offer if you explain that you are taking a shot in the dark and you may have to rebuild both engines and maybe replace the seals or rebuild the transmissions also. Remember, if you get them cheap enough, it would be easier to con the Admiral. I don't know how your yard is set up or how large, but you can puchase a small ( 1 for motorcycles or garden tractors ) "instant garage" camofloge it and store the engines in there above the ground wrapped in a plastic tarp. I once hid a 1939 Chevy sedan from my wife in my yard for 8 months. It is all in presentation.

Good Luck, John

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I have been looking at storage places to see what they would charge. The admiral wants a lot of things done for the house and feels these engines would take money away from what she wants done. I explained that if everything works out I would have 2 engines that are worth a lot more than what it would cost to fix them and that I could then sell off all of the parts and possibly end up with some extra $$$. So far she's not buying into it. I can kind of see her point, my side of the garage does have a lot of boat parts, a swim platform, Leos Bridge ladder and helm, window gasket material, 4 5-gallon gas cans, The new headliner and various other odds and ends from my last 2 boat rebuilds. She says she is tired of my "hobby" and I should just be happy mowing the lawn and fixing the house lol, like that will ever happen. I keep telling her she married the old man from the sea and she should get used to me running off to the ocean every chance I get. She loves the beach but says hanging out on the boat is boring, cant figure that one out unless she likes having noisy neighbors while suntanning.
I am going to see if the guy will take $900 for both since the blocks, cooling systems and trannys are worth at least that much. Boiling out the blocks, installing new freeze out plugs, main and rod bearings, seals etc would run another $1000

[leokow]

If you could get them both for that price then I agree, go get them. My biggest concern is the engine that is frozen. That usually means that one or more of the mains went totally dry and that's what's holding things up.
Your little distributor oiling deal with some PB Blaster mixed in just may break things loose after a short time of sitting with te mixture in it.
The next biggest concern is the Admiral, I agree with John, it's all in how you approach it, the outdoor mini shack is a great idea, and may even give you some room to move some of your boating stuff OUT of the garage, (some points there)and help to clean things up a little for her. Maybe even trade off a project that she wants done (winter time ,only.LOL). I'm sure you've been around long enough to know how to make it work.This I do know from past experience, a dissambled engine spread all over for a couple of months causes big problems.

also ,now that you've given me more info on the engines that you have , I can understand what the guy at Jasper is looking for. He doesn't know what HP engines that you have , and the cam numbers Plus a couple of other things will let him know, I agree with John, I think he's worried about complaints that one engine will be more powerful than the other and doesn't want to deal with a complication.
I still don't believe that it makes any difference if you have a 454 on one side and a 350 on the other, kind of extreme, but you get the idea,you can certainly run your boat and figure out if it's pulling one way or the other and compensate for it with the throttle.

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Thanks again for all of the input. I really dont care if one engine has to go 300 or 400 rpms faster that the other as long as they keep running. Now, as for the other engines I was thinking along the lines of having a backup for the stbd engine in case of a breakdown. As usual, I didnt look at things fully. I will have a good port engine with the Jasper engine and I have a block (old port engine block) that I can send out and have boiled out and have new freeze outs and cam bearings installed. I can then rebuild that block as a backup to my existing stbd engine. This means the block wont be sitting in my garage while its being cleaned out (I'll tell the shop to take their time since I'm not in any hurry) when it finally is done, then it will be only one engine and not 2. The engine will basically be a long block since I will be using my manifolds and bolt ons from the current stbd engine. This means a savings of cash, which I can then use to do one of the admirals jobs thus keeping both of us happy ( I hope lol)

[leokow]

Whatever you say .BOSS, I guess you have it all figured out, you sure lost me with all that port and starboard block stuff, maybe I'm just tired, anyway, hope it all works out....Leo

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Sometimes I confuse even myself Leo. I just thought that not buying the 2 other engines but rebuilding the one engine that wiped the bearings was easier ( cheaper and complaint proof). Since I save the cost of buying the 2 engines and all of the new parts needed to fix them I could do some of the admirals jobs. I really dont need 2 engines, I will have a good one from Jasper. I will only have to buy a reverse rebuild kit and new crank to have a running reverse rotation engine as a backup in case the second engine goes like the first one did. So rebuilding my current blown engine by converting it from standard to reverse rotation gets me out of a lot of grief from the admiral. Follow?