Blown Powerhead, Now What?

[MainelyBASS]

Engine is toast. Needs a new powerhead. I have a loan on the boat thats just 1 year old. I owe $9,000 and its worth $9200 according to NADA. I do not have the financial means to buy another used motor, roughly 5k for a decent 150-200HP. I also do not have the means to rebuild the motor, getting estimates of $3500-$4500. Anyone else go through this? What did you do? Possibly try to take out a small loan somewhere for $3500 to fix the boat? Im stuck and depressed. Any thoughts?

[slonezp]

Break Out Another Thousand

[Nice_Bass]

how old is the motor if the boat is 1 year old...or is it one year old to you?

[F14A-B]

Stop fishing for a while, possibly work overtime or pick up a second job.. Save the extra earnings, while your saving/working continue to search out a better value on the motor work.

It can be done.. But you will have to knuckle down

Best of luck..

[S Hovanec]

Fish alot with the electric motor til you can have it fixed.

[pcakes55]

You can still fish with the trolling motor. There are plenty of places in our area where you don't need an outboard at all. Do this until you can afford to fix it, don't let it ruin your season completely

[Way2slow]

What make, model and year is your motor? Do you have a better description of "Toast". Did internal parts become external.

Where are you located?

[MainelyBASS]

What make, model and year is your motor? Do you have a better description of "Toast". Did internal parts become external.

Where are you located?

Im not sure exactly what happened. The dealer just told me it was a blown powerhead. Nothing blew, no holes anywhere. It's a 2004 Mercury XR6 150. I am in Southern Maine.

[Way2slow]

Well, I would have made him give me a better definition. Most reputable dealers don't rebuild powerheads, they swap them out for either new or mercury authorized remain units, and through a dealer, that's very expensive, $5,000 or more. The reason being, at dealer labor rates, it's not that much more because of the time it takes, and it's under warranty by someone besides him. If the dealer is saying he will rebuild it, I would be extremely suspicious of that. The typical price just for a remain'd powerhead is $3,000-$$4,000, and that's none of the labor and other work that should be done, like new water pumps etc.

I've been messing with outboards most of my life and I have come across more shady, crooked mechanics than I have good ones and finding a good, honest one, is hard to do. There's a few thousand extra dollars easily made by a guy that says you need a new powerhead and will rebuild yours, when in fact, all he does is pull it down, possibly repairs one cylinder and puts it back together, gets it running, and claims he rebuilt it. He puts a couple hundred dollars in parts in it and charges you for about $2,000 worth. You are non the wiser until a couple years later it blows again, and you are right back in the same situation. There are guys selling Remain'd powerheads heads at full remain'd prices doing this. After enough law suits and people getting wise to them, they just go bankrupt, change names or something, and keep right on screwing people.

Now, understand, there is nothing wrong with just repairing one cylinder in an otherwise perfectly good powerhead, (if that's the problem) but this is a repair, not a rebuild and will carry a $1,200 to $1,500 price tag and not a $3,500 - $5,500 price tag.

The reason for all the questions, I was going to see if I could help you out, but with you in Main, and me in the middle of GA, don't see that happening. Plus the fact that's it's a Merc, and I don't like to work on them, or have any of the special tools the might be need for them. Sorry.

I would start doing a whole lot of research and homework about repair facilities. Many times it's worth that couple hour drive to get to a good mechanic and get a second opinion.

[thomas15]

I think we all understand that you might not want to talk about it but it would also be helpful if you could give some detail as to how the motor became blown and what are the conditions that you now see. Is the motor seized? Have you tried to do a compression check? Did the motor overheat? Run low on oil?

[Logan S]

I would start doing a whole lot of research and homework about repair facilities. Many times it's worth that couple hour drive to get to a good mechanic and get a second opinion.

This is excellent advice, don't rely on one single mechanic when it comes to spending thousands of dollars.  You can also check compression in your driveway, testers are cheap and it's not very difficult.  It won't give you the full picture, but at least you'll know for yourself if one or more cylinders is toasted without paying for shop labor....

 

My motor blew up a few years ago so I can feel your pain.  I went with a new motor that had a warranty, but I was either fishing on the trolling motor only or on the back of other boats from May til the next March while I figured the money part out.  I didn't owe anything on the boat so my decision was a little different...I really liked my boat, it's big, fast, and also handles and fishes very well...So I could either take the same amount of money and look for another used boat that I may or may not like as much as the current rig (and that could have it's own headaches)...OR re-power the rig that I already know/like and get the piece of mind that comes with a 5-year warranty .  

 

It sucks, but if you're in the game long enough it happens... Hope you can get it worked out.

[MainelyBASS]

I think we all understand that you might not want to talk about it but it would also be helpful if you could give some detail as to how the motor became blown and what are the conditions that you now see. Is the motor seized? Have you tried to do a compression check? Did the motor overheat? Run low on oil?

The battery actually died on me because I left the recirc's on after a tournament and didnt realize until I was on the water 5 days later that they were still running. Fortunately a nice person on the lake let me plug into their outlet and charge the boat for 20 minutes. In the run back to the boat launch the motor just stopped dead at 50MPH. I almost went through the windshield. The motor is seized but nothing blew out. I removed all the plugs and tried to move the flywheel but its still locked up tight. Im not very mechanically inclined so its tough to provide other details.

[MainelyBASS]

The last 3 estimates that I got for a new powerhead have all been between $6-$7K

[Way2slow]

If it's locked up, it's most definetlly "BROKE".

Now, if you have been living right and the fishing gods have smiled on you, it could be a stuck piston, that's about a $1,500 repair by the right person.

If the above does not apply, the oil injection could have quit and welded a rotating assembly into a solid unit. If that happened, they may not even give you core credit against a remand power head.

There are a number of builders I would not hesitate going remand over new if money was tight. They are usually a couple thousand cheaper.

The next thing is finding why, and repairing that, which a mechanic can tell once it's torn down.

[tomustang]

XR6? low oil seize i'm guessing

[MainelyBASS]

XR6? low oil seize i'm guessing

I have to ask why you asked this question? The strange thing is, it seems like the oil has been at the same level for a while and I havent needed to add any. Are they known to do that?

[tomustang]

I have to ask why you asked this question? The strange thing is, it seems like the oil has been at the same level for a while and I havent needed to add any. Are they known to do that?

Yup, kind of like efi's have clogged fuel line issues and optimax's blow injectors

[Way2slow]

Well, sounds like you just  diagnosed your problem.  Two strokes can't run very long without a constant supply of oil, no more than they can run without gas.  If the gas tank is going down, the oil tank should be going down proportionally also.  At 50:1, if you used 10 gallons of gas, you should have used 26 ounces of oil.  It can't take spells that it does not use oil, not and live for very long anyway. 

 

I know I've heard on a couple of Merc's that have a plastic drive gear on the oil pump that has a tendency to fail.

 

So, it sounds like you have a hellava expensive anchor, because if that's is the case, that powerhead is basically junk.    

[F14A-B]

Wow, seen it happen before a long time ago after the oil injection became avail ( I hate it personally)

The guy had bank though, so he wasn't derailed much.. I would probably consider a "new" "used"

Motor, but that's just me..

Best of luck guy, truly...

[Way2slow]

I need to clarify my comments on oil and gas burning at a 50:1 ratio in two stroke engines. That only applies to carb a EFI. DFI motors like the eTec's do things different. They use much less oil because they only mix enough oil with the gas to lubricate the top rings, so those will be nowhere near 50:1.