vetting

northwoodsoutlet.com always has the best price - you have to call to order.

For my fresh water boat - I do an ablative paint job every year, I give it a good pressure washing. Then let it dry good and sand any lumpy stuff and bit by anywhere its down to the gel. Then I just go at it with a brush and roller and use West Marine CPP. Every year I do just touchups where needed and roll a full coat in high wear areas. Every 3 to 4 years, I take a gallon and do a full 2 coats. In lake michigan, I have boat neighbors that come out of the water with zebra and quaga musscles all of their boat. I only end up with them on underwater equipment/brackets that dont have CPP on them.

Love mine - been using them for 2 years for 10 color lead. Wish I could find a good deal on them so I can upgrade my 7 and 8 color setups. Anyone know of any deals?

Make sure your power steering belt is really tight. I had the same thing and it was just that the belt loosened up a bit. The hard turning would come and go depending on how well the belt was gripping at the time. I tightened up the belt as much as I could my moving the power steering pulley/fill bottle and the boat turns like a dream now 24x7

They have it - I called last friday and they had 4 of them in stock.

I think the main issue is we washed the motor down a ton with cleaner and diesel to remove all of the oil/water cake mix. As a result the lifters were empty when we installed everything and not primed when the adjustment was made. Plus the guy who did the original adjustment kinda went back and forth with different ways to adjust them so I think he ended up cranking on them more than once.

So turns out the rockers were all too tight from the beginning. To fix, I replaced all of the plugs that were fouled, then backed off the rockers about 4 turns and got some compression on the 2 dead cylinders. I then warmed up the boat to operating temp with the valve cover off on that side. I then was able to back off the rockers another 2 full turns on average before they started to clatter with the motor running. Then turned them back down to where they stopped clattering and turned them another half turn or so. I didnt do another compression test yet, but its purring like a kitten at 600rmps at idle and in gear with 50 psi of oil pressure. So what I think what happened is that they were all too tight from the beginning and once I did a long WOT run, it heated the oil enough that the lifter cleared out and the lifter finally filled the entire way. Then the push rod was putting too much pressure on the valve and they werent closing all the way hence the 0 compression. Would also explain why the plugs all looked like they were super dark and why everything heated up. Its just a matter of any damage was done running it for 2 weeks with the extremely tight valve train. I'll run it like it is for a few days, see how it runs, and then do another compression test.

It is a 89 Mercruiser V8 5.7 260 HP

Need 2 of the 2 foot extensions for walker downriggers. Its the back end rod that screws into the rod where the cable guide goes through.

So after 3 years of only minor repairs, my 25ft Mercruiser V8 I/O has been giving me nothing but grief this year. - This spring I replaced the entire outdrive - Then found that my gimbal steering collar was out of whack so had to replace the gimbal ring. That was a lovely 19 hour labor bill. - Finally got to fish for a bit and then had a bilge pump that failed which lead to the back of the boat dipping at the dock which then let cold water back up through the exhaust and onto a hot head. Cracked the starboard side head. - Tore down the entire top half of the motor and replaced the head along with all of the gaskets. Along with tons of cleaner to get the gunky/frothy oil out and 6 total oil changes while messing with it. - Fished another 2 days and got stranded 3 miles out due to my cap/rotor busting the pin off - After replacing the cap/rotor, the boat wouldnt run. That lead to replacing all of the wire connectors on the motor. Boat finally ran well after that. - Fished a tournament last Saturday and on the race back into the harbor for weigh-in, the boat suddenly went from 25mph to 15mph with no change in throttle. Backed off a bit and got it to go again, but seemed as though I had to throttle up a bit. Then the temp went up to 210 so I backed off again. Limped it back to the harbor and started to inspect what happened. Pulled one plug at a time and did a compression test. Mind you, before the new head was swapped on - compression was 140 to 150 on all cylinders. The head was replaced on the 2-4-6-8 side. Plug #8 was not even hand tight and the electode was slightly melted. 4 was also loose and 6 wasnt much better. All 3 plugs had white soot on them from blowby and 4 was dark. 1-150 3-150 5-140 7-150 2 -150 4- 5 6 -120 8 - 0 So looks like the new head blew up and may have taken some pistons with it. Any ideas on what could have happened and where I should go from here? Would really had to rip the entire thing down again but looks like Im going to have to - just a little difficult with the costs that have added up already. If it comes down to it, does anyone have an experience with any companies that offer a fresh rebuilt longblock?

I have a Raymarine Evolution 200 with a 70R control head paired with a Sport Pilot to turn the wheel and hooked up to a a67 chart/sonar. The Sport Pilot is hard to find now, but its the best combo there is. If you cant find it as a package, your next best bet is to look into an octopus helm and pair it up with another system.

Sorry but I sold all of these awhile ago.

I can usually troll down to 2.2 with my 25' cuddy with a V8 mercruiser, but I have the idle set low (still has great oil pressure). I opted for 2 of the 18" bags so I could deploy them both. In the past I just used a 1 gallon bucket on each side to slow me down if being pushed by the waves, so I figured 2 18s would do the trick. Plus with a bag on each side it helps make the boat more stable.