firehawkcat

And you had most of the work done!

goldeneyee

OK, I'm in agreement with all of you. Nonetheless, the bill still needs to get paid and I'm going to sit down with the proprietor and I need some hard numbers. How many hours is reasonable for this job.... Thanks

bobsbillets

no more than 4 hours total....call a few boat shops and get quotes. Then goto him with your info. Tell him you ll pay the bill but never do business again unless the price is more resonable. That is if he doesnt want to lower the price.

goldeneyee

Thanks for all the replies. I was present when most of the work was done--(it took 3+ weeks to complete) and the best I could recollect is slightly over 4 hours. The mechanic who did the work is no longer employed and may have exaggerated his hours. I certainly want to be fair about this billing and the shop owner is a stand up guy so I think this will be resolved without much difficulty.

ezstriper

was the tech in training ??if it took that long...sounds like he was using your boat as on the job training ??

Panther

Only question I have is if they did anything else like change the shift boot, water supply hose and/or anything else while they were in there?

Figure an hour to R&R each drive, then an hour for each cable billable because a lot of shops don't charge partial hours (4 hrs), then o-ring kit for each drive and cost of shift cable plus misc. shop supplies. Add an extra hour plus oil if both drive fluids where changed. I think that's reasonable.

goldeneyee

I changed the gear lube in both drives as well as greasing the U-joints and gimbel housing zerks. In addition, I ran a die on all stud threads and replaced and installed all drive nuts, washers, trim cylinders, tie bar saddles and tie bar. As you might recall, I also took off these parts prior to the Tech going to work on the boat. There was only one nut holding each drive on when the work commenced. I wouldn't think that taking off the one nut and removing and reinstalling the drive and one nut would take an hour but I am not the expert here. The tech did replace the small shifter arms behind the the top back cover plate of both drives althought the old ones with 31 hours on them didn't look bad to me. Some water had gotten into the shifter arm compartment and although not rusty or worn out such were changed as a preventative measure. The shifter boots were changed as they were part of the ordered cable kit and I thought it was a good idea. The water supply hose was not changed and no other parts were replaced.

HiPerf2000

iTrader: (2)

the shift boot needs to come off and be re-installed when a new cable in installed. so regardless if it was new or not, that is part of installation.

I replaced both of mine this year. One side took all of 45 minutes. the other 5 hours. I usually tape a fish to the top side of the cable and pull the cable it out of the transom housing. I then tape the new cable to the fish and pull the new one back up to the motor. With the 5hr job, the fish came un-taped when I was pulling the old one out, and I couldnt get the new one routed properly. Once I did, I realized I forgot the shift boot so i had to pull it back out and do it over.

point is, maybe they are trying to make you pay for his mistakes that were made.

goldeneyee

I was present when the old cables were removed and the new ones pulled. Similar procedure as you described but new cable was taped to the old and it went off without a hitch althought one side took slightly longer. I would estimate about 45 minutes for both sides at the most.

Here's Johnny

We are all forgetting one thing here.......
B.....break
O.....out
A.....another
T.....thousand

sorry I had to slide that in....sounds a little excessive to me..........I hope you get this worked out with the marina.........good luck....!!