Bad News and a Warning for Saltwater Boaters
 

Well, ley me start by saying check you r engine often for saltwater intrusion into the cylinders.

:cry::cry::cry:

I kept having trouble keeping my 1990 150 Evinrude running this year,
I could start it on th ehose, but in the water it would die out.
I thought maybe something simple like dirty carb or fuel line clog.
I tried evrything and finally gave up and took her to the mechanic.
Well he scoped the engine and found that saltwater has been seeping into cylindaer 1,3 &5 for a long time and finally caused burn through of the cyliders.:sad:
He told me that he suggests to all his customers to have gasket replacement every 4 or 5 years to avoid this issue.
Well this explains a lot and this was probably happening for a while and now that I think of it, it explains why I noticed a loss of power last year and the year before.
Well, until I can afford another engine, I guess next summer will be a good year to do nothing but work on the hull and I think I may need to replace the transom, it is still pretty firm, but I have noticed some indentations around the engine bolts.

Oh well, next year will be fishing from a canoe and beach.

That sucks. well at least you have all winter to look for a replacement. Ebay can be a good source for something. I had a 150 Yamaha midsaction and lower but no powerhead. With some patience I found a fully dressed 225 Yamaha powerhead on Ebay. Just what I wanted. I'm sure you will come across something. Is your motor rebuildable? If only 1 or 2 cylinders need to be bored and the crank is still good you should be ok.

All three cylinders.

Rebuild = about the same as a good used engine.
New power head = about the same as a good used engine, for my year.
Looks like I am looking for a good used engine.

I would love to do it myself, but rigth now I am involved with projects at work that take me out of the country
every other month and when I am home, the honey do list is a mile long.

www.screamandfly.com will be your friend here. Since you say it's a 90 that should be an old style cross-flow engine which means you can swap in ALOT of different model powerheads from 150-235 pretty easily. You can often times pick-up a complete 150-235 over there or good powerhead for under $1K that has never even seen saltwater in it's entire life.

Sucks out loud...good news is it didn't strand you somewhere...

...anyway, Ferm's got ya on the right track!...and w/the deals they're makin' on new outboards these days, that may be a way to go...I had mine paid off in no time...:party:

tough nut Parish, you will work it out though I am sure, good luck my friend

Thanks for all the help, it's great to have people around that treat you like family.

Now that SKools is hitched, maybe you can convince him he needs to thin out his boating stuff since he's married now and get him to come off of one of his gems.

tough break parish, there is nothing time & money can't cure

put a bug in big shrimpin's ear and let him put you primo merc 2 stroke together this winter.

sorry to hear your lose.... BUT I'd love to help you pick out a new e-tec:sun::sun::hide: