Willy,

What's your point?

No boat motor will "leave you stranded as a result of anything you can
foresee." If that was true you would have the foreseen problem fixed
before you launched.

The true moral of the story is you weren't looking for preventative
maintenance help, you just wanted to tell us all about the electrician
aboard your 19' boat who cleaned out your wallet.

BTW - fuses would have cost you half as much as the "fusses" the
mechanic sold you and you should have discussed their two hour delay for
troubleshooting a basic problem.

Finally, you can't expect to "limp back to shore" if you "smack
something hard enough to damage the prop." Spin your hub and you're
done. Crack your lower unit and you're done. Destroy your drive shaft
or gears and you're done.


William G. Andersen wrote:

Not the belt. I had the belt on my 1950CL changed after six years because I
thought I was pressing my luck. I looked at the old belt before I threw it
away - it looked almost the same as the new one the dealer just installed;
no wear was evident.
Not the prop. Even if you smack something hard enough to damage the prop,
you'll still be able to limp back to shore.
I suspect a well maintained boat would leave you stranded only after
catastrophic failure - like a broken valve. Actually that happened to me
when my boat was brand new and I didn't know what was wrong. I limped back
to the launch ramp at idle speed. (MerCruiser replaced the engine.)
Oh: you know what'll do it? A failed fuse! I don't know why the fuse would
fail, but it happened to me. We'd been out for several hours, had just
finished about 15 minutes of idle speed operation, and when in idle the
engine quit and wouldn't restart.
I had an electrician aboard. His trouble shooting couldn't find anything, we
suspected the safety switch controlled by the lanyard. I forgot that among
the few fusses behind the instrument panel was one for ignition. That was
expensive. Cost me $130 for 2 hours of mechanic time before he checked for
that fuse.
The moral of the story is that a well maintained 3 liter mercruiser won't
leave you stranded as a result of anything you could foresee.



wrote in message ...

What might be the first thing to break or shut down on the little 3.0
Mercruiser engine that would leave you stranded in the middle of a
lake? Considering it's kept well maintained and run in the 3200-3500
rpm range. Excluding fuel and battery.
Thanks,
HJJ