New 2007 26M Owner-My factory pickup story-A bit long

[deja_vu]

OK, So Just finished getting my boat setup and going through it. Bad news..I need a new galley, table and front hatch. All have major cosmetic defects, Bad enough that the dealer said "I'd be pretty mad myself if my boat came like that". That was after I said, "I'm not trying to be a pain or anything but these look kind of bad." Also, one of the upper stays has a wire cut so will be getting a new one of those too.

As for the motor. It looks like I'm going to actually to the install it myself, that was the original plan, and I just found out that the shop can't do it this week like they had said, so it's back to me. It's actually already in my garage next to the engine hoist so almost ready to go.

I don't know if that's a very smart decision, we'll see I guess. I figure I've installed new motors into Toyota Supras so hanging a motor on the back of a boat is far less complex. Plus this way I can do what I can to try to avoid the whole hit the cockpit seat thing. But if I have to hit the seat to avoid having the anti-ventilation plate within the "safe" level of 1" below the bottom of the boat I will choose to hit the seat. As for drilling the holes Mercury pretty much makes you use their drilling fixture to so you don't have much choice beyond marking the center line. It's all about which mounting holes you use.

For now I've got the Mercury factory controller, which seems aweful, and really isn't going to fit with the new pedestal. You've got maybe a quarter inch clearance between the steering wheel and the end of the throttle and that's with installing it at a screwy angle to get that much clearance. When going from reverse to neutral you pretty much have to side arm the thing. It's not going to be staying for long. I'm going to end up with a uflex I think, I'll gut the Merc control for the electrics in it though so it's not a total loss.

As for money saved. Including gas, food hotel for a night, and even the dvd's I spent less than $475. To have it shipped here on a truck would have been over $1500. I don't have the cost broken down to exact numbers but I filled up 6 times, and never paid more than $50, hotel was $40, dvds were like $25, we spent maybe $40 on food if that. Hours spent- I left Thursday at 1:30 in the afternoon, and got back Saturday at 2am.


And here's the simple tip I learned when setting up the boat on a trailier. From reading the board I've seen people talking about the RAT rigging tool and stuff for adjusting tension on the stays and I was wondering what he was going to do to get enough tension on it. You probalby all already know this, but he just grabbed a rope and tied it off through the eye on the shroud then made a loop about a foot off the ground, and stepped in it with one foot. Easy as that, put as much pressue on the line as you want, no tools required and you can put way more than you'd ever need. When I told him about the tool people use his answer was..heck I'm just a farmboy and we use what we got. Point is sometimes I think sometimes we make things more complex than they need to be.

[Richard O'Brien]

Dejavu, When I bought my B-184 Uflex, from Boater's World, it was shipped from Salt Lake. Betcha it's a local pick up for you? Sounds like you have it well in hand. You're right, often we put up so many ladders you can't get over the wall.

[LOUIS B HOLUB]

Good story and its funny how a persons manner can make or break a good day. Maybe Mac ought to send ole' bill to charm school.

If it were me I would give ole Bill a call let him know you got home safe
and happy no thanks to him.

...Good Idea Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I still think a customer is owed courtesy...especially one that travels hundreds of miles for an expenditure of $30K plus. I think its SHAMEFUL. Just my 2 cents worth...

[deja_vu]

Richard do you happen to have more info on where you picked that up? I went to boatersworld.com and don't see any uflex controllers and called the local Boater's world store and they said they've never carried the uflex line of controllers. Thanks.

[RandyMoon]

My dealer in Nebraska goes to the factory, picks the boats up, takes them to his store, rigs them and delivers them to your door. When I bought mine, he advertised free delivery within 1000 miles. I don't know if he still does but I liked the idea that he went to the factory and scoped the boat closely to make sure it was in good condition.

And like Louis said, customer courtesy would not cost a dime and goes a long way towards building a loyal customer base.

[Catigale]

ON rigging tension

but he just grabbed a rope and tied it off through the eye on the shroud then made a loop about a foot off the ground, and stepped in it with one foot. Easy as that, put as much pressue on the line as you want,

I guess you will be limited by your mass, in terms of how much tension you can put in with this method...I think the uppers on my are at about 300# tension or more, which outdoes even my lard butt.....YMMV

[mtc]

deja - you've installed an engine in a Supra? I've always wanted one but have only actually seen two in my life (sheltered). Couldnt make up my mind between the Supra or the GT3000, but I liked the inline six better than the v. So, I restored a Wrangler.

If you can R&R an engine in a Supra, a complex system with all its peripheral electronic supports, you can certainly pop that Merc puppy on your transom.

A few years back, I rebuilt a Ford big block 460cid bored 0.35 over displacing a little over 8 Liters for a '68 T Bird. Now the powerful heat pump lies dormant, wrapped in Vaseline and plastic on an engine stand in my garage - waiting for her body. She was designed to produce 600 HP comsuming around 3 mpg. Now I cant afford the gasoline to run her on. Could squeeze her into the after bunk of Bellaroo, eh?

Anyway, regarding your doing your own work - go for it. From what I've seen in the 'professional' installer world, you stand a good chance of excelling at it. Most of us here have made most of the mistakes one could make and we're all pretty happy to confess.

Youve read your installation manual. The plate on your motor should be at the line of your keel at the back of the boat. With the motor mounted on the second holes from the top, it will be exactly there, but the motor won't retract and you'll have the foot and that big screw dragging behind you. If you go up to get the screw out of the water, you have the seat problem. In our boats, every little bit helps with speed so the standing rule is to not slow it down any.

Obviously, the 60 Merc is not the right slick, motor for the M but it works. Just have to compromise. Im sure that 90 hp Suzuki has clearance problems too, somewhere. With the Merc mounted in the top holes, the foot is deeper in the water, which will trim the boat a little nose heavy and increase drag under power. You can trim up to remedy that. Now, on my boat, the top holes places the motor right at the edge of the limits, but for sailing it works better for me. Probably not most efficient for motoring, but Bellaroo is being set-up to sail fast. She already does well under Merc power first hole or second hole. As long as the motor cools sufficiently, it's not a problem.

If I was a smart man, Id have installed a smaller motor. But Im a power freak and wanted the biggest motor possible w/o reinforcing the transom, as I believe Blue Water does with their mounts. From what we hear, they do excellent work, too!

Being able to sit at the helm, steer without grinding glass against glass, foot out of the water eliminating drag, is worth any loss of power under Merc. IMHO

Do you still have your engine hoist to lift the Merc? Not something you can do by hand. Too risky.

Michael.

[deja_vu]

Now that would be something to see a 600 horse Mac. Maybe fill her with a few thousand pounds of lead, lengthen the mast by 10, 15, 20 feet...add a whole lot more glass down there to support it all...um and now you pretty much just have a lead weight, maybe not such a good idea after all.


Anyway, one of the main reasons I was orignally planning on doing the install myself was that there aren't really any shops here experienced in installing an engine on a mac. When I went to buy the engine they were like, you are putting that thing on a what? A sailboat? You sure?

That's actually also why I ended up working on supras as well. I blew a headgasket and couldn't find any shops that had ever worked on one. So I got the factory manuals, rented a small garage, and loaded it up with tools. I had taken autoshop in high school so I knew a bit about what I was doing, and the factory manual gives you step by step instructions for pretty much anything you'd ever want to do. Eventually I found a guy through the Interent who also needed his engine rebuilt and we ended up spliting costs. Was a lot of fun and a great learning experience. That Supra is now in the hands of a high school kid who somehow hasn't managed to kill himself with it, but the poor thing is pretty much destroyed.

Anyway, the only reason I had changed my mind about installing the engine myself is when I went into the shop to pickup some rubber boots, and to arrange to rent the template to drill the holes the guy told me their installer said to bring it all back and he'd install the thing for $300 including the PDI that I have to do anyway. PDI is the predelivery inspection that the shop has to do after I install, to run the motor, and hook it up to the computer and make sure the EFI is setup for the altitude I'm at and all that. Supposedly, I can't do that myself cause it needs to be hooked up to their machines, but it should only be $100 and it'll be nice to have them make sure I hooked it all up correctly. But then when I called to schedule them to do the install they said they couldn't do it and oh it would be more like $500-600.

I guess I'll see when I try to hang it tomorrow if it is acceptable on those top holes. If it's close enough to that 1" mark I'll do it. I'm just worried about it hanging too low and getting some grief during the PDI inspection. They won't send in my warranty cards until after I've passed it.

And yes, I've still got that engine hoist....wouldn't have considered doing this if I didn't have one.

[mtc]

And yes, I've still got that engine hoist....wouldn't have considered doing this if I didn't have one.

Now, why would reasonable men with sailboats have engine hoists in their garages?

. . . you never know.

I could pick up all sorts of things with this and roll them around my garage.

Fodder for yet another poll?

Who has engine hoists in their garages?

[aya16]

In stalling the engine is pretty straight forward, all the wires are plug and play. The controls are big so uflex is the way to go. Also when you pick up the motor make sure they give you the seperate key switch and alarm
buzzer. The sixty shouldnt hit the top of the seat when trimmed up.
Here in calif theres a yearly tax on the boat. called a lux tax. When I bought my 18 foot cuddy with a custom trailer that I had a trailer shop make and a 135hp mariner outboard I bought seperate. I installed the motor myself (well I had a friend help) But when I picked the motor up I used the boat
to transport it. When I made the deal for the motor part of the deal was the dealer ( diff. from the boat dealer) would place the engine on the transom drill two holes to mount through the motor well and I took it home. Then I did the rest of the install. 20 years ago. the moter came with install instructions.
But back to the tax. To my surprise when I got the bill from the county tax collector it was for the boat only. So instead of paying tax on the total cost of the boat around 25 thousand It was for the 12 K i paid just for the boat.

also if you install the motor so that the the lower unit is as far down
as it will go you lessen the chance of blow out or cavatation. Your loss in speed is very little and like said above somewhere you can trim the motor
up some when planeing.

Ill post a link to the new controller.

[aya16]

http://www.overtons.com/modperl/overton ... &fcat=2C1A

here it is. you will need an adapter for the cables for the merc.


http://www.overtons.com/modperl/overton ... &fcat=2C1A

[They Theirs]

here it is. you will need an adapter for the cables for the merc.

[mtc]

What uflex cables have been installed with this control unit on the merc?

Also, any leads on where to get the seperate key switches? I could probably pull them out of the stock merc controller?

Michael

[aya16]

the engine you buy should have the option of seperate key
you want the dealer to set this up for you when you haggle over the price of the engine. If you tell him first you might be able to trade the stock shifter for all the stuff you need
you will also need the dead man switch seperate. so Its best to talk to the dealer he will set you up

[Andy26M]

Congratulations Deja and welcome to the Mac family!

I bought my boat from an east coast dealer - he took delivery from the shipper and then trailered the boat right to my doorstep for free. Then his assisitant came back the next weekend and helped me do all the initial rigging, launch it the first time, and rode with me on the maiden voyage to make sure everything worked. There were a few nit-noid problems which were corrected expeditiously via the dealer. He even gave me a free quart of the bottom paint they used so I could make touch-ups for a while.

It's pretty clear that the factory puts no effort into customer satisfaction - they rely on their dealers and the after-market folks like Blue Water Yachts, Bill@boats4sale, and boards like this one to keep us all happy.

Again, welcome! We look forward to hearing all your stories!

- Andy