Budman II

iTrader: (1)

I hate to give you anything else to worry about, but any time a boat is allowed to hold that much water in the bilge I worry about water getting into the transom and the stringers. I'm not an expert on the construction quality of the Mach I's, but if it is anything like a lot of the "second tier" boats out there - and I don't want to come across the wrong way - the builders often cut corners on things like fully glassing in drain holes in stringers and bulk heads, and properly sealing screws for various fixtures inside the boat. When water is allowed to stand in these areas, it can penetrate into the wood coring of the stringers, transom, bulkheads, floors, even the deck and hull itself. A lot of the higher end boats like Formula, Cigarette, Fountain, etc., do a better job in these areas, but even these boats can get rotten if they are not properly taken care of. Before you sink a ton more money into this boat, maybe it would be wise to have someone check for rot in the stringers back there near th engines, as well as the transom.

In regards to the engine issue, if I was to take a guess I would suspect a blown head gasket. Next suspect would be a riser gasket.

balinsteadt

In response to a PM from a guy named Travis who is not the Travis in the story below (I asked) and because the PM only allows for 2000 characters:


Travis was the name of the service manager at Smithville Marine a little over two years ago when I took my boat there after it bombed on me the first time I took it out for the new summer in 2010. My boat crapped out on me the latter part of summer 2009 and Smithville Marine "fixed" it and winterized it for me since it was so close to the end of the summer. That was my first lesson in boats. Dont trust a mechanic when they say its fixed.... take it for a test run and make sure its fixed. Anyway, when the weather finally got nice in 2010 I took the boat out and didn't even make it past the no wake zone before the port side engine hydrolocked. I took it back to Smithville Marine and they called me a few weeks later to tell me they couldn't figure out where the water was coming from and they assumed I had a crack in the block. I told them I didn't have money to buy a new engine that they wanted 7k for and they gave me the option of shipping the block off to have it magna-fluxed for a cost of 1,700.... still not knowing whether or not there was a crack I started my first thread on OSO. One of the members up in Omaha offered to sell me a low hour take out for 2000 and I jumped on it. I drove up to Omaha and back to smithville and gave the Long block to smithville Marine. It took them about 3 weeks but they finally got the motor in and called me to tell me it was ready. I took it out for a test run and it sounded like a freaking pogo stick when it cranked. I was startled at first but tried it again and it fired up and sounded normal.. so I went out of the no wake zone and jumped up on plane. Ran it a bit and noticed the foul odor of burning oil. I looked down at the gauges and they all read normal but I shut her down anyway just to figure out if we had a fire. I opened the hatch and could hear what sounded like the oil boiling. It literally sounded like a freaking pressure cooker was under the oil pan and was about to explode. Anyway, I took it back to smithville Marine and told them what had happened and from there through the rest of the summer I went up to smithville about every two weeks to go take the boat on another test run. It never worked and my wife got involved.... this is where it gets ugly. My wife threw a fit, bless her heart, and Smithville wound up giving us the boat back without charging us another dime. I was out 2k for a motor I'm still not sure I needed but smithville Marine didnt charge us for any of their labor or parts they threw into my boat. probably in the vicinity of 2-3k worth of labor charges and who knows how much in shop supplies and odds-n-ends. Travis (service manager) was stuck in the middle. Poor guy was dealing with my wife, the owner of Smithville Marine, and a mechanic who apparently doesnt know his front side from his back side when it comes to boats. (His name is Wendell, I'll come back to him later) So, in frustration I park my boat. (you already know that part of the story) and my wife tells me she doesnt want to spend anymore money on the boat. She was mad and taking it out on the boat, but she was right. We were pretty short on money at the time. She had recently lost her job and we were in pretty dire straights financially speaking. Anyway, my plan was to take the boat down to Performance Boat Brokerage in Camdenton. I figured if anyone could fix my boat they could. But my wife still wouldnt have it. She had been through enough with the boat and didnt want to go through anymore at the time. Well, as the winter came and went she finally got another job in February of 2011. We had moved into an apartment to save some money over the house we were renting and we all hated it. We were on the 3rd floor and the stairs sucked.... not having a garage sucked... everything just sucked... We were saving money for a down payment on a house from that point until late august of 2011 when we bought our house. I promised her I would get her a house if the first thing we did after was fix my boat. She agreed and so we bought the house. Well, buying a house and fixing a boat in the same calendar season doesnt really work very well. I am sure you can understand why. At any rate, I saved what I could when I could and scraped my pennies to come up with a reasonable amount of money but it seemed no matter what something would happen and we would need to tap it. It was one thing after another. A/C problems at the end of the summer, Furnace issues in the winter. I learned just how far a 500 gallon tank of propane goes when you have the heat set by a chilly wife and outside air temps under 20... Then things started looking up until my dog chewed a hole in the entry way floor. Thats a true story! I replaced that with ceramic tile. Good luck chewing through that! Anyway aside from that I was finally able to scrape enough together where I was comfortable putting the boat back in the shop. I had been to B&B before and they looked like an old family of fishermen sitting around selling fishing tackle from their bait shop so I didn't want to go there. There is a ford dealership in Smithville that sells and works on boats. I decided I would give them a shot after extensively searching for reviews. That search yielded very little in the way of reviews. But I figured no news was good news, and it wasnt Smithville Marine so I drug the boat up there. Upon my arrival I began telling the guy at the service counter all about what was going on with my boat 2 years ago and he said "hang on... let me call the boat mechanic up so you can speak directly with him." The guy at the counter got on the intercom system and said "Wendell, come to the service counter. Wendell, to the service counter, please." I said: "You know what?" as my eyes got really big, "I'll come back later!" And I drove across the street to the fishermen at B&B Marine.

That was a little over 2 months ago... Danny is going to look at my boat again on Wednesday or Thursday, so I am hoping for the best.

balinsteadt

I was concerned about rot too... I asked Danny, my mechanic to look for it when he was pulling the engines. I got lucky!

jwp

How do YOU know the motors were seized ? I ask because your starters would have been under water and probably frozen up solid... Did anyone you trust pull the plugs and turn the motor over by hand?

endeavour32

iTrader: (4)

I'm confused on this bellhousing issue. My bravo bell housings everything threads into the block. The only thing that threads into the housing that I can remember is the inspection plate. The two bolts in the back of the bellhousing thread into the inner transom plate and even if that was the issue the nuts are replaceable as they just slide into a groove.

Either way you asked him to get the engine running not repair everything he found wrong. I personally would never go back to that marina. I think you got screwed!

dsmawd350

Hes talking about the outdrive bellhousings aka helmets not engine bellhousings

TooTall

the pressure cooker boiling noise that you heard with the engine hatch up . . . that was bad exhaust manifolds leaking back into the engine cylinders. You might have had a good running engine, but killed it with some rotted out manifolds

balinsteadt

No one did anything like that except the mechanic. I did beat on the starter while the wife turned the key before I took him the boat. It got the starter to turn a bit but the engine (pulleys) didn't move. I even heard the gears grind a bit on the flywheel. I trust the mechanic on that. I know the block was full of water. The dipstick showed chocolate milk over halfway up.

balinsteadt

Yes... the drive bell housing.

balinsteadt

Is that a common symptom of bad exhaust manifolds? Its no longer making that noise as of my test run on Friday of last week.

I think the exhaust manifolds were replaced with some used ones while the boat was at Smithville Marine. I don't have a parts list or service order from them.