On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 06:53:25 -0500, terry wrote:

Good Thing about the Camaro. For any car engine and transmission you put
into a boat you will need to work out some form of thrust bearing on the
propshaft. A small block slant 6 or v6 might be the best options. Besure
to put a fire resistor on the carb.

As far as the merc. throw in some mystery oil LOTS OF IT and let it soak
out for a little while then fill with oil. Put plenty of mystery oil in the
cylinders to insure that the rings are free. The old timers used mystery
oil and or BRAKE FLUID for years but i'm not certian how well the main oil
seals would take to the break fluid, they should handle it. But again,
while you have it out it might be a good bet to replace the front and rear
oil seals anyway. Keeps the gunk out of the bilge.

Someone gave me a boat with a locked up Mercruiser. It was a 4 cylinder
Iron Duke and an Alpha One outdrive. The motor oil was drained (or leaked
out) and the boat sat for about 5 years uncovered.

The transom was completely shot, and the floor was beginning to turn into
topsoil.

I did have some fun freeing the motor - I removed all of the plugs and
filled the cylinders with transmission fluid.. and let it sit.

When it finally broke free, you should have seen the trans fluid fly out
of those spark plug holes. I'd say a couple of cylinders propelled the
trans fluid 15-20' into the air.

Make sure to crank it with the plugs out...:-)

I gave the boat away to someone who just wanted the trailer. It was just
too far gone. We ended up picking up an 86 Sunbird 175, same motor and
outdrive combination.. awesome boat. This summer we ended up with a
new 22' pontoon (2004 Swee****er) + 90hp Johnson 2 stroke outboard.
It's almost as fast as the Sunbird (30mph) but drives like a bus.

Now that all of the kinks are worked out of the new boat it's time to put
it up for the winter. Go figure - the Sunbird hasn't had any significant
issues since we bought it over 2 years ago .. and the new boat broke every
time we went out - little things like VRO pumps and engine control
computer (called "SLOW"). New stuff is garbage.

-Steve