New to Boating

[Drey]

I just wanted to say hello to all again,

1992 Maxum SR1800
V6, 4.3L?
Alpha 1

I bought the boat about 1 month ago and have used it a couple of times however I need some help with what maintenance to do to it.

The guy I bought it from seemed like he knew very little about a boat, even less than me, and said it was serviced but misplaced the records..

So I want to do a full tune-up I guess?

Where do you get a vacuum pump (for oil removal?) for the outdrive?

Help please, I am a jet mechanic in the military and mechanically inclined so I think I can do a lot of the stuff myself, I hope...


Thank you

Drey

[biggerseagar]

Hey Drey welcome to the club!.........Have you had the boat check out by a marine mechanic? Just curious....... So Ca you probably want to boat all year around? I'm still dealing with snow! Two options......either get a service manual for Mercury $$$$ or one from Cylmer or Sealoc less$$$. More bang for your buck with a Cylmer manual. They will cover more engines sizes but hunt for the one that fits your outdrive and year.

Overtons is just one of the many website boat stuff stores that you can get your oil pump. I have one that is battery operated and I have a hand pump (Par makes them). With your engine set up you might look into just draining the oil out into your beilge. An old rag and some simple green will clean that up. Drain it out of your drain plug hole into a bucket The reason I say this is that you get all the oil and junk out of your engine by draining it rather than pumping it out. Goggle this and you will see the sky is the limit on all the stuff that is out there.

Back to the marine mechanic. I would start there with just getting it checked out, since you are a newcomer to all this he can show you what to look for and maybe some trade secrets!

In a nutshell change your oil and filter and water separater every 50 hours or once a season(look in your maxum merc owners manual for this too). The same for your outdrive fluid(the manual will show you how to do this plus look on you-tube a ton of stuff on how to). I have been boating for over 30 years and all this is second nature to me and so it will with you with alittle practise. Use your computer to find out how to do stuff, it is amazing what you can find.

The tune-up can be once a year if alot of hours get put on(get an hour meter put on if you don't have one already) Plugs (NGK's are what Merc uses) rotor and cap and you might look into new plugs wires too. On your outdrive is an impellar that pumps water into your engine(the outdrive splits in half to get a new one installed) It will cost you some labor but if you have heating problems that is your problem. I change mine every three years. The outdrive has two screws, one on top and one on the bottom. The top in a vent and the bottom is where you drain the fluid out. The color should be a dark green. Anything else you got problems. You can find alot of this on E-Bay on the cheap.

This should get you started hopefully in the right direction.........take a safe boating course while you are at it too!Your insurance will be cheaper and it is a great experince! Get your boat Vessel Safety Checked to make sure you have all the right stuff that the USGC and the state of California wants you to have.

Hope this helps........

Roger

[Brianm]

Drey,

Welcome and thanks for your service. I am no mechanic (boat or aircraft!) and have a mobile tech do my service. If you are referring to the lower unit gear lube, no pump is required. Gravity drains the lube out ports in the leg. If you mean engine oil, a pump does speed the process over using the transom drain plug line (if yours is so equipped). I visit West Marine on a very regular basis for most things boating. A bit pricey but they have it all on line. Great lakes skipper is another useful web site to buy through. Good luck, enjoy the boat and thanks again for your service

[shrew]

There is a Gear Lube Pump for filling the gear lube:

http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs...classNum=10440

Then there are manual oil pumps for draining motor oil from the engine:

http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs...classNum=10440


OR electric oil pumps for draining motor oil from the engine.

http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs...classNum=10440


I'm not sure which is being referred to, but hopefully that helps.

Gear Lube should be able to be drained from the drive with gravity, though the engine and drive should be warmed up first.

[ss3964spd]

I dunno, Drey, as a jet engine mechanic are you certain you're up to the challenge of wrenching on a decided old school push rod V6?

Kidding, natch. Nothing terribly mysterious about these things and Roger, Brian, and Shrew have already given ya everything ya need to get started.

1st maintenance priority in my opinion: Since you do not know the maintenance history, and since you already know the engine runs well, the very first thing I would take care of is the raw water impeller that Roger mentioned. Because you cannot "see" it for inspection, and since you don't know how old it is (it's made of rubber; gets hard, cracks, and comes apart), it'll ruin your day, and perhaps the engine via overheating, if it goes bad. Most definately a buzz kill when on the water.

Dan

[seapuppy]

drey
Welcome to the zoo....1st)working on a boat is relatively easy...it's getting to the parts that's hard...the engine oil has 2 ways to empty the oil out of the pan...one is to let the pan rust apart and that will drain it real quick....not a good way to change the oil....the other way is to use the oil bouy that shrew posted....now there is 2 ways to empty the oil with that device...all involves beer....no.... wait....just one....you can suck it out with the ob thru the dip stick..(remove the stick first) and the other is sometimes the newer models have an oil pan drain tube attached......to pull off the oil filter requires a little bitty samurai warrior or sumo wrestler that is double jointed....if yours has the upside down remote oil filter...your screwed...the first oil change will look like your engine exploded....
to make it easy...get a bunch of those oil towels/absorbers...place them all around the oil filter adaptor ..punch a hole in the upside down oil filter and put your lips over the hole...now suck...no wait...blow as hard as you can....that should get most of the oil out of the filter....
then have a plastic bag open and handy cuz it's gonna go everywhere.....spin it off and wrap it with one of those towels I mentioned....
now spend the next 20 minutes cleaning up the oil that drained all over the place when you spun the filter off and it slipped out of your hand and bounced all over the bilge....

you should have oil up to your elbows by now...have a beer!!...

for the drive...it's relatively easy....put the drive down....on one side or the other...there is a flat bladed screw at the bottom and near the top on the same side......right close to the bullet shaped part where those spinny things are...we call em props....you jet jockies call em spinny thingies....
put an oil catch can under the drive skeg...(blade looking thing that is under those spinny thingies)....
remove the flat bladed screw cap with a flat blade screwdriver...have a spare blue oil gasket handy..your going to want to replace the one that's on there ...9 times outa 10..you have to pry those off....

take the top plug off so it will drain faster....
now here it gets tricky....have a beer while the oil drains like mollasass.......come back in about 10-15 min...have another beer....

now for the fun part...you should have one of those oil pumps that fits onto the bottle of out drive oil..use mercruiser drive oil....it's green ...smells to high heaven....but does the job....clean off the metal shavings from the magnetic plug and replace the blue gasket......have it ready....thread the pump hose into the threads of the drive..insert into bottle...or insert into bottle and THEN thread into drive....
start pumping like mad....don't touch the beer yet.....when that first bottle is empty...have the other sitting there ready to have the pump inserted into the new bottle....pump like crazy......
remember that hole at the top of the drive???....bout half way thru the second bottle ..that should start oozing out oil....plug the hole...then pump about 10-15 more times......the trick now is to get the hose off the drive before it all leaks down into your hands.....quickly unscrew the pump hose and plug the drive oil drain as fast as you can....done.....now spend the next 20 min. cleaning the oil off the drive which is has the consistancy of honey...but smells worse...



NOW HAVE A BEER!!!


SP

[seapuppy]

oh yeah...you might concider having someone show you how to replace the raw water impeller

SP

[jblack1036]

@seapuppy, that was a very good informative narative..(LMAO)....you did forget to mention, that if not watching the upper hole on the outdrive, that it just might come flying out into your hair or in your face depending on how fast you are pumping the oil in......DON"T ASK...........

Also, @Drey, you might want to replace the empeller "BEFORE" adding the new drive oil......just a thought. Unless you are sure of its integrity......:-)

[seapuppy]

Jim
good point....on both...sorry for the mix up but I'd just gotten back from Vegas and still having some jet lag from flying around the place about 10 times with our hair on fire trying to see everything in 4 days...let me tell you..it can't be done....you just can't see it all....anyway....what you speak is true...get the impeller done first...THEN do the oil in the drive...


SP