TOPIC: Found a great new mechanic! Antique Outboards

I need to find a professional that will work on a 1976 Merc 1500 outboard in the Denver Metro area.
I have been taking my Nordic 1981 18’ to them for all my work, and I have tried to be patient, but after my last $730 bill (reduced to $600 when I reminded them that was the price quoted), and the REPAIR DID NOT WORK…

I have taken the boat in at least a half dozen times, because while it idles just fine, it would not accelerate. Before I bought the boat I paid them to do a prepurchase inspection. Compression was good on all the cylinders. They recommended replacing the wiring harness, which I paid them to do as soon as I bought the boat. Next it was timing issues, then it was the fuel pump had a worn diaphragm, and the latest issue was the feed line coming into the fuel pump was disintegrating. Then the electric lift/trim system had to be replaced. That was the $600 most recent repair bill. They lost a mechanic last week, and did not pick up the hydraulic pump assembly at the beginning of the week when I told them to go ahead with the repairs. Friday, I show up to pick up the boat and it’s not ready. Not only not ready but they never got the part, and now it’s not available. So they had to scramble and find it from another supplier. I go out and look at the motor, and the hose is not repaired or even connected to the fuel pump. So Saturday I call to see if it will be ready for pickup at the promised noon time, and now it’s 1pm. At 2pm its finished, and I head straight for the lake for the morning beach party with friends that had to be rescheduled to the afternoon. The hydraulic lift lowers for the boat inspector, but will not lift back up. ARGH!
And worse the engine is running like crap. Guess what? All the adjustments they’d made when the fuel lines were not working right and the pump was leaking internally, resulted in the engine now running far too rich.
Trying to accelerate to WOT now floods and kills the engine. Another boater happened by, he was also just returning from Valentines, and he warned me that he’d seen them with their greasy tools and the pump parts all over my white back seats, and that it had been a mess. Excuse me, but what about drop cloths or something? The seats were cleaned up when I picked up the boat, but that seems very unprofessional.
Then in the back reservoir area I find the stub of the worn fuel line. I suspect they just cut off the worn end of the hose instead of replacing it.

Okay, I realize that probably the mechanic that left was on the task list, and the one remaining mechanic was under the gun to hurry up with all the outstanding service requests, but:

If you have been servicing the same engine repeatedly, and you have replaced the fuel pump:
• How could you miss the fuel line end that connects to the pump is not sealing?
• Wouldn’t you want to readjust the engine mix?
• If the boat has been brought back repeatedly for no power at WOT, wouldn’t you try something else?

I’ve taken the boat back. Again. After they make things right with this repair job I already paid for, I’m going elsewhere, if I can.

Okay, here is the latest episode with me and Valentines Marine:
I’m trying to be patient with them, they are a Mom and Pop place, a local Mercury repair shop, but I am just about at the end of my rope.

Just to review, I own a 1981 Nordic Bubbledeck 18’ fiberglass boat with a 1976 Mercury 150HP inline 6 outboard.
I had them do the pre-purchase inspection, and after purchasing the boat I followed their advice and replaced the wire harness.
After that, I have spent the summer going back and forth to the shop, getting issues with the fuel system resolved.
- Cracked fuel line (lost one week)
- Worn diaphragm in fuel pump (lost 2 weeks)
- Oh, wait, here is another section of fuel line that needs replacing (another week in the shop)
- Broken check valves in squeeze bulb.
- Replaced external fuel line fuel filter (did this myself)

Through all of this, they’d tweak the mixture/timing to address the fuel flow issues. Now that “hopefully” all of the fuel line issues are resolved, the mix is way off.
When I try to accelerate, the motor lugs out and dies. Once or twice out of 20-30 tries, I can surgically coax it to accelerate to speed.

Then the hydraulic trim pump motor failed.

Valentines quoted me around a thousand dollars to replace with a new system (the bottom mount plates had stripped and so the reservoir had drained of fluid).
Or they were able to find a replacement used but fully working unit for about half that. It was a Monday when I got this info, and I sighed and said yes get it done, and I was told to pick up the boat on Friday.
I get there, and they had forgotten to pick up the unit. And it was no longer available. And I had a beach party planned with the boat for Saturday morning.
We moved the party to the afternoon, so they could send a runner to get another used unit Saturday morning from somewhere else and the mechanic could get it installed.
Great. It is installed, I get out to the lake, and the system cycles once, then fails. Turns out the armored hydraulic lines had arced against the exposed battery terminals (guess who did not cover it back up?).
And burned a hole in the line. AND THE ENGINE STILL RUNS POORLY. I pay for new hydraulic lines. (my word against theirs about the battery being left exposed… just bad luck for me).
During this time period, one mechanic quits, leaving one mechanic (Dave). The head of the company dies, which is Dave’s Dad, so the boat is tied up in the repair shop for 2 more weeks.

While dealing with the problems at the boat ramp another boater comes by and mentions that he saw my boat there at Valentines with my back bench seat with grease all over it, and the hydraulic pump sitting on my white bench seats. He also mentioned that he was overcharged for work, and he was not taking his boat back. I notice a stub of fuel line in the back engine area… did I pay for a line replacement and all they did was cut off the worn end?

I take it back, again… Explain in detail how the motor is not working consistently and how hard it is to accelerate under load. The mechanic makes a comment about compression in the cylinders and I remind him that he was the one that checked them when I paid them to do the preinspection. Another week passes, and I am now coming up on a big date, my department is having a beach day on a Tuesday. I explain how important it is to get this resolved and he talks about taking the boat out to the lake to adjust it out there. Great. Friday the boat is not ready. Saturday comes. I am out of town for my son’s football game. (Did I mention they are closed Sunday and Mondays?) I call in the afternoon to find out what Dave can tell me about the motor. On the phone, he asks someone else what they did to the motor. (WTH? I guess they have a new mechanic helping.) He said that the mechanic adjusted the carbs. (This is a 6 cyl 2 stroke engine with 3 carbs.) And now its ready. I have them park it out front, (I should have my own reserved spot by now…) And I pick it up after hours. Sunday and my wife and I rush out the boat to the lake right before sunset to test it. Husssah! Its running better, and it accelerates better.

I spend all my free time before and after work Monday scrubbing/polishing/fueling up the boat. We get out to the lake, and the boat pulls the tube around just fine with 3 adults. We load up the boat with passengers and the motor goes back to its maddening lugging out when you try to accelerate. At the close of the party, my wife and I take the boat out solo, and it works better. We go out with one other adult, to try to get me up on a pair of water skiis. No joy.

I call Valentines, and Dave starts talking about going out to the lake to tune it again, and drag a tire to put a load on it. Great! Why didn’t he do that last week?
Then he starts asking what the prop pitch is and it sounds like he is fishing for another excuse to cover up a poorly tuned engine. It’s a 15P 3 bladed prop.

This last time, someone left what looks like a remote starter switch in the back drain bay of the engine area. (2 alligator clipped wires with a push-button?)

I want to take it back and make them make things right. I have spent far too much money and time with them to let them get away with doing such a poor job on the motor.
But as the season draws to a close, I think maybe I need to just cut my losses and find someplace else. If I do that, I will be hitting Valentines with complaints to the BBB, the local troubleshooter, and any/all online blogs and boating sites I can to warn people away from them. I have tried to be very patient with them, but they are a Merc Authorized Service center. They should be able to tune a 2 stroke motor!
And the problem, again, is happening under load. So just fiddling with the motor hooked to a hose is not going to cut it. Months of time and money spent. And now I am to expect that the largest motor Merc made in 76 is not powerful enough to pull a single skier out of the water?

What should I do?

Wow! is about all I have to say. You are a very patient person. I would have been looking for another mechanic a long time ago.

Best advice I can offer is to find some local AOMCI meets, go there and see if there are folks who could help you out. I had a problem with my motor, went to one of those meets, and found a good friend who helped me get my '63 1000 apart and back together and running well. At least that's how I remember it...

Also, there are good folks here. Hopefully someone around your area will pipe up and lend a hand.

Best of luck!

Frank

I took the boat to Antique Outboards this weekend, and Pat Osness called me back today.

He found the problem(s) listed here in no particular order:

Speedometer is stuck on 12mph. (This is was unexpected, but I am glad he caught it.) He replaced it with a warranteed used Speedo.

Tachometer is burned up. When Valentines replaced the wire harness, they miswired the tach to the alternator, like newer tachs do. This burned out the old tach. (Grr!) Pat installed a warranteed used tach that was stock for that motor, and it works great.

Impeller needs to be replaced. While it was squirting, it was not as strong a stream as it should be. (Being an older guy, I can relate how this can be a problem.) Pat replaced it as part of a $150 flat fee redo of the lower crankcase.

They are going to install a new water pressure gauge on the dash (something I thought should be a must have with an older 2 stroke like this). Its a newer 0-35psi, and I needed to put in a 0-15psi, so at some point I need to replace it again, becasue all I will get is a low end wiggle on the pressure rather than a better read. Much better than nothing. It fit perfectly in the hole the old trim gauge was in, and since it was plugged into nothing, the guage was useless. Will save it for if I resell the boat.

And he found the problem that was causing all my woes on the lake – The pulse line from the engine to the fuel pump was loose.
The pulse line is what works the diaphragm in the fuel pump, and as a result, the motor was starving for fuel when under load. This really grinds my beans as I had paid Valentines to rebuild the fuel pump because of a worn out diaphram. They probably forgot to put a clamp on the hose!

The prop is a 3 bladed 15 pitch, and although he said when I take the boat to Oklahoma this summer it could handle a 17 pitch at the lower altitudes, the 15 is fine. Now that I have a working tach I can check performance better.

He did a full compression leak test on the engine, where they pressurize the cylinders and slowly hand turn the pistons through a cycle to see if there is a cylinder defect.

Compression is great! He stated it was almost factory new, compression-wise. Plugs are clean and we have a good spark. Started right up when he was testing it.

I spent all day Saturday replacing all the lights on the trailer with LED’s and replacing worn out and trashed trailer wiring harness.

I taught myself how to use a grease gun (don’t laugh, I had no clue –Dad died when I was 15). And greased the trailers wheel bearings with Green Grease.
Before I go from Aurora CO to Pryor Okla, I will pull the wheels and repack or replace the bearings, and get my trusted mechanic at my tire shop to set up a new pair of tires.

We have a 6 cylinder Town and Country Minivan that has the towing upgrades, so we are okay there.

I’ll post another update after I lake test the repairs.

In the meantime, I have filed a written complaint with the BBB about Valentines, and dinged them on the web rating pages. I also c'd my complaint to Mercury, but they don't read their emails, so I will have to find a different way to contact someone who is in charge of certifying the "Mercury Authorized" centers.

WOW, thats alot more BS than I would have put up with. Its too bad that you had to go through all that from a merc dealer/repair person. I am glad that you finnally got it fixed. It just goes to show you no matter how careful you are in picking your place to do business you can still get screwed. Good luck and keep after Mercury with your complaint. Skip.

Very glad to hear you finally found someone to help you get that Merc straightened out.........enjoy!

After the first page they would have had to call the police and I guarantee you they wouldn't want to see me coming. I would gather up all paperwork from the first idiots and gather up your new guy's actions and statement as to prior repairs and go straight to small claims court. ps maybe firebombing would be a good course of action!!!! LOL

I am sorry that Doc Frankenmerc can't be cloned!

I'm a skeptical kind of guy... When any of my motors need service, be it, my truck, my car, rototiller, snow blower etc...
I have to talk directly to the guy who is doing the work. If a dealership won't let me, I go elsewhere

When I rebuilt my '69 Merc 80, I took it to the dealer for it's first fire-up. I spoke with the manager and specifically hired the oldest tech in the shop. When I booked him, I also booked a repair bay for the entire Saturday morning... no disruptions! Two hours later, my Merc was reborn! It was worth the 93 bucks an hour. After all I had well over a grand into it and six months of my own time.
Worth every penny..... If anyone is interested here is my re-build link

forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=296896

Roasting them over the coals on BBB, DexKnows, and other forums and mailing lists. Now that I know what the problem is I can more accurately point the blame at them. If BBB comes back to work out some sort of resolution on this problem, I'm going to ask for a refund for their share of the $350 repair bill from Antique Outboards, which is $200 (less the $150 for the impeller/lower gearbox work). Then I can plow that money back into other work. That's getting off cheap.