On Tue, 19 Jun 2018 22:09:37 -0000 (UTC), Bill
wrote:

wrote:
No big deal. I did throw a belt at it. It was a tad over $100 in
parts, I did the water pump kit on the 1400 hour. That adds another
$50 or so.
It took about 4 hours, not much compared to the $700 in labor the
Yamaha dealer charges, plus full retail on the parts instead of the
~30% off you get on the internet.
Nothing exciting turned up (no water in the oil etc) and the computer
says I still have never thrown a code for anything.
So far so good on my 2012 F70. I still have a few little things to do
on the boat but we will splash for our regular boat ride tomorrow.
I might go ahead and work on the trailer before I put it away (wheel
bearing clean and pack mostly)


My 2003 Yamaha T-8 has only had two problems in all those years. Piece of
dirt or something on the idle jet. And the shifter cam in the handle
broke. They make good engines and assemblies.

The big problem with Yamaha is they have the most expensive parts in
the outboard arena. One problem with parts in all manufacturers is
they don't have any parts shipped in bulk. When every little screw and
washer gets it's own plastic envelope with separate tracking for each
one, you quickly make a nickel part $2.
At IBM, stuff like that was shipped 144 at a time to the distribution
center and ended up being too cheap to inventory. You just made sure
box wasn't empty.
Back when I was doing a lot with Harleys and also had some spare time
on my hands around the industrial parts counters in Rockville, I
tracked down quite a few of those things (along with a few other guys
I knew who were working on them) and had a list of the Harley part
number along with the number you could use at a counter store.
Typically you could save 75-80% and in a lot of cases actually get a
higher rated part. (bearings in particular)
On outboards, probably the worst case is the kit you buy to rebuild
tilt and trim assemblies. On my Merc you needed 2 kits, they were both
over $50 each 20 years ago and there was about $2 worth of O rings in
there along with one or 2 proprietary gaskets that you can buy
separately.
I just had the same thing with my F70. There are O rings under the
holders for the cylinder anodes that are $2.90 each (with the
discount). The anode itself is only $2.30
When I looked, I have those exact O rings in my O ring assortment box
from Harbor Fright. If I went to the Ace Hardware and bought them in
an envelope they are 2 for .79 which is still more than they should
be.
I understand the part is a couple pennies and handling the envelope is
the expensive part.