kerno

I had to bribe people to let me on. Actually, I read a post by emudryj about a mystery e-mail and did a google search for "Wiley" and "Boating".

And when he's 18 you'll never be able to find a beer in the fridge....... But kids do make life worthwhile. Mine married a great gal and that makes it all the better.

I've done that enough times that I can only shake my head in sympathy. But I understand the need to rewire something since once you do, you understand how it is wired as opposed to wondering what they had in mind when they did it.

Lead seems like pretty simple stuff and is easy to recycle. A lot of recycled lead is contaminated with other metals like zinc and antimony. Odyssey is the only battery company I know of that owns their own mines and uses 100 percent new lead. I am not all that fussy about car batteries, but Odysseys are in my console. Longest life, highest electical capacity per pound and very resitant to shock damage. The best part is tha Sears sells them for less under their own label.

Hey Sprockets: Who bought the boat? I thought it was a smokin deal and pitched it to a couple people. Was it anyone we know?

Mike: As fuel has gotten more expensive, both inboards and outboards have gotten more fuel efficient. Inboards have typically been more efficient because they were derived from automobiles and the two stroke outboards did not have very good fuel metering. But we're now at a point where both forms of propusion are pretty close in their energy efficiency and is comes down to how much energy in BTU's it akes to move how much weight with a given deadrise. As far as I'm concerned, deadrise is more of a varible in the fuel burn than if it is inboard or outboard - unless it is diesel.

Welder: I run Ring Free and Techron and have not had a problem. Carbon on the valve stems can reduce both intake and exhaust flow, but most intake valve build ups are oil based from loose valve guides. I've never had a problem with carbon buildup on valve seats because they simply can't hang on long enough to build up. The usual problem is that if they get thick enough they can also stay hot enough to preignite the mixture. They can also cause the rings to stcik in the ring gooves and not seal properly. But no matter what, the engines I looked at had no evidence of unusual wear or carbon buildup. The valve stems were still in the head, with the springs and retainers looking normal. Once the head came off, you could see the carnage caused by the valve head being trapped between the piston and the cylinder head,

I know that carbon deposits can increase to compression ration by reducing the effective chamber volume at TDC and had I seen extensive carbon in the chambers, I might consider it a factor. But the chambers were not carboned up - especially on the engines run at high speed. Do you know of a specific way carbon deposits can cause failure?

Bob: You are more than welcome to copy anyone with the info. I can also send you a valve head or two. As far as the parts and cowl are concerned, They would be worth something if they were 2500 miles east of their location. I have given serious consideration to loading the whole pile into a container and shipping it back this way. But the stuff has to be on skids and a shipping a 20 foot container from Maui to Long Beach is about $3600. There are only 90,000 residents on Maui. Here's the strange one: Hawaii has both the fewest boats of any state as well as the fewest boats per capita of any state. That does not mean a good mechanic could not do well here. You have to be creative but if you did both cars and boats, you'd stay very busy. You could also sell Yamahas. We had the Superferry that ran between Maui and Oahu, so you could take your boat to Oahu for service or go to a real car dealership for purchases or repairs, but the State Supreme Court shut it down Thursday because of an improper Environmental Impact report. 260 people laid off and now everything has to ship back and forth by barge again. Gasoline is $2.71 but diesel is now $4.35! We are being ripped off big time.

Prior to running the Hondas, he was running Mercury two strokes, both EFI and Opti's. The Opti's had their share of problems, but the EFIs generally ran until they were just plain tired. Trying Yamahas or Suzukis might sound like a good idea, but there is no dealer here for them. When I bought my Venture 34, I was considering re-powering it before I shipped it and thought the Suzi 300's would be ideal. I went to the Suzuki website looking for dealers and was amazed to see Valley Isle Marine listed as a dealer. I called the owner and said "Hey, I see you are a Suzuki dealer". His response was "I am?" I chose to stay with my Yamaha 225's because he is a Honda and Mercury dealer. Since Mercury sold the Yamahas painted black, he has the ability to get parts for them, though andy at SIM is far faster in getting them to me because my local guy does not stock parts other than water pump impellers and spark plugs. He orders other parts as he needs them. He does not have a Verado certified tech, so he cannot sell the Verado line. The most popular brand of engines here continues to be the Hondas. Another dealer set up shop about a year ago with the BRP line and that's when the raft company decided to try them. My Stamas 29 had Honda 225's on it and I really liked the engines. I sold the boat to the same raft company and they have been using it for fishing charters. It now has about 2000 hours on the engines and 3500 on the hull. It and is seldom run at high speed, so the engines will probably outlast the boat. The hull itself has not done well in the continued pounding of our daily chop and is suffering numerous structural failures. I'll post another thread on that problem.

Next time I get down there, I am going to have to find a way to meet all of you. Hoooking up at the Miami show did not work because the bar was packed and I had no one's cell phone number. I still had a great time!

Ok, I was glad to see that I beat Welder here, but you guys beat both of us. What's up with that. I'm suddenly feeling left out.....

This information is posted for those who can benefit from it and is not to start a fight. It also includes photos, so hang on while we look at some issues to consider. I have a very close friend who runs four RIBs as tour boats on Maui. At least two of the boats go out every day and they get run hard. He puts about 5 hours on each boat a day. Some of the boats run at lower speeds, depending on their size. Others are run hard and fast. As such, he goes through engines. I'm not talking about a few engines either. He made the transition to the Honda 225's when they became available on Maui in mid 2003. I know they were sold elsewhere sooner, but we had no Honda dealer on the island. When he started running the Hondas, he found he was able to only get get about 2700 hours out the the ones run at high rpm for extended periods. The ones that were running at more normal RPMs lasted at least twice as long and usually lost their lower units before the powerheads failed. If his operation was on the mainland, there would probably be people who were able to properly repair the engines at a reasonable price. But this is not the mainland and the local dealer has a 3 month waiting list for service. If you are in the tour business, you don't have a choice. You just buy a new engine and install it. I personally counted the dead Honda 225's in his yard. There are 15 of them. He originally had no idea what was failing in the engines, but once there's a hole in the block, and no one to fix it anyway, there's not much point in taking it apart. But as the dead engines piled up, he did start taking them apart to see what failed. The number one cause of failure was the head of a valve coming off the valve stem. Many valves are made in two pieces, with the head inertia welded onto the stem. That may work in some applications, but Honda 225's that are run at about 5000 rpm don't seem to like it. At lower RPM's, with a typical operating speed of 3800, the engines go at least 5000 hours before the same failure occurs. So, if anyone want to rebuild a bunch of Honda 225's, I know where you can get a deal on a bunch of them. It may look strange to see all these engines and parts laying around, but there is no market for them here. Anyway, once he realized that the high rpms were killing the Hondas, he switched over to E-tecs. They seemed to work well at first, but two of the four 2008 225 HP engines now have holes in their pistons. Why? You may have read complaints about the BRP fuel lines dissolving internally. Many people, including BRP, denied that there was a problem. But when they looked into the cause of lean failure on these engines, they found the black residue from the fuel lines in the filters. BRP contended that it was from too much ethanol in the fuel. When the fuel was sampled, they found the ethanol content was 10.5 percent. That exceeds what is allowable, so there was no warranty coverage. It may be that the lines will tolerate 9 percent and come apart at 10 and a half percent, but if you have a late E-tec, you may want to check the engine mounted filters frequently. Also, the 225's use a powdered metal gear on the starter. They are prone to crack in half. When they do, you cannot use a rope to start the engine. So, what's the conclusion? If you have Hondas, you may want to either run them at lower speeds or add some sort of valve seat lubricant so the continued hammering of the vave onto the seat does not cause a failure. If you have a late E-tec, watch the fuel lines and filters carefully because it may be the lines or at may be the ethanol, but someting is causing the hoses to fail. I've only posted two picture because the site allows only 500k in attachments. I can post more on request. The engines are in several different piles, so I could not get them all at once. The first picture shows 4 of the Hondas. The second shows a few more along with 2 E-tec cowls and some mid section trim panels.

What, you let Lester join here? Next it will be Daddy O and Farmer Jane!

Well, I see the E-tec guys got here faster than the four stroke guys. Maybe it is because they make more horsepower than my 208 Yamadogs....... The first thread on the list today is the "I am on a boat" and I see we have Capt. Dash aboard as well. Hey, Chris: Do you want to get ahold of Florida Dan to round it out?