Originally Posted by Dangerous Dave

My local shop (Lightning Bay Performance Marine in St. Petersburg, FL) pulled both my motors out of a 28 Cigarette in about two hours. They only charged me for labor. Putting them back in may be different.

Originally Posted by hillbilly24

Pulling the motor realy isn't all that tough. Ussualy with boats the hardest part is getting a hoist that is high enough. You can't use a cherry picker unless you have a pretty small boat. If you have acess to an over head lift or a forklift you are god to go though. It only takes about an hour at most to get one out. You want to pull the drive first though don't try and pull and re intall the engine with the drive on, complete pain in the az if possible at all depending on your configuration. I always pull the lag bolts or through bolts out of the stringer and take the whole mount with the engine, the biggest reason for doing this is that it is a good chance to check for wet or roten stringers. If the bolts are wet you have problems. Other then that just find the easiest way to disconect each sytem without making a mess. Pull the power steering lines at the valve not the pump, if you stop by a shop they will probably have a coupler that will join the two lines so they don't drip all over the place, they ship crate engines with these couplers so most shops have a few sitting around. You can ussualy pull the ruber exhuast couplers loose and then slide them back clear of the riser so ou don't ahve to pull any of the exhuast, unless you have solid tails, then something has to come out. make sure you keep track of the fiber washers and springs when pulling the rear moun bolts, they are important for re assembaly. When you go back together it helps to glue the fiber washers in place with something to retain them and the springs while you set the engine in. As far as electrical all you have to disconect is the 10 pin harness, teh battery calbe from the starter, the trimp pump power wire from the stater, the mercathode wireing if you have one, the wires are all labled by color on the mercathode box so you don't have to worry about marking them, then just make ure you unhook all grounds, there are often more then one so make sure you get them all. Fuel is easy just one hose unless you have an aftermarket fuel system with a return. I like to use a bolt to plug the fuel line from the tank in case the anti siphin valve has been removed or fails, you could wind up with a blige full of fuel the next morning oherwise. The water inlet hose is easiest to unhook at the trasnom. It can be a pain to get to the hose clamp depending on which way they faced it when they put it together but they also ussualy strap the inlet hose to the engine in a few places so is you unhook it from the raw water pump you have to worry about un doing a bunch of other clamps to free it from the engine. Last but not least if the engine has an oil drain hose that connects to an oil exchanger or the drain plug make sure it is free before lifting the engine. Then just lift it slowly and make sure you didn't miss anything. After you set the engine back in you always want to check alingment as even a small change can cuase problems for the coupler. Hope this was thorough enough, it is defenitly somehting that you can do yourself if youa are mechanicaly inclnied.