Just saw these. Sorry you guys are having to go thru all this stuff. Your dad is an amazing mechanic. Good luck from Baton Rouge, Louisiana with the repairs!
Thanks so much for the kind words. It's our hope that some of this might help and encourage people to work on their own stuff if they can see what's involved. Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment .
Thanks for watching and commenting. Mercury uses the serial number off your motor to identify the correct parts for your motor they do not use the year .Also they supersede the numbers very often so a number we put up in the video may not be current for that part now.
We appreciate you watching! We found it when I was unfortunately not recording. We pulled the lower unit and the top of the impeller housing and drive shaft we’re covered in DFI oil, as was the inside of the leg.
Awesome it so interesting how optimax are a job security for mercury Here’s what I had with my 2004 175 optimax crankshaft sleeve it fall off the and I wasn’t able to reinstalled the lower unit
If rubber has made it down to one of your main caps It has probably also made it into your main bearings or your wristpin bearings. honestly if it were me, I would just be breaking that block down to clean it and possibly rehone it. Throw a new set of rings in it and check bearing/surface tolerances and replace as necessary. it will be like a rebuilt long block...
Thank you for watching and commenting we had the same concerns and thoughts as you eventually we ended up pulling the intake plenum and reed plate out and were able to get a good look at the crank and rods and it was not as bad as we expected . It ended up getting new reeds because one was cracked cleaned up and put back together we ran it for a few months this summer and fall and it runs great . I was able to talk to a couple people that work on them regularly and they said the rubber is not a big concern to them they see it on all of them to some extent as the belt wears rubber dust accumulates around the throttle body and plate area and some enters the intake as there's no filter to stop that .When there's a belt failure you do get bigger chunks that take a long time to dig out it gets everywhere .
Awesome video. I am getting ready to take on this exact same task on my 250 Pro XS. My powerhead base gasket is original. Hopefully it isn’t a nightmare. My motor only has 110 hours on it. Im hoping this isn’t something that will need to be done again anytime soon. Have you had a chance to run it? No oil leak?
First off I’d lie to just say thankyou for watching! If one person finds this video useful, it was worth our effort to make it. We do have the motor running now, and all seems to be well, no leaks so far!
Great news! It’s also really cool that you get to hang out and work on stuff with your dad. Cherish those moments. I’ll be watching for more content. 👍🏻
Hi It's not a terrible job Do you have the oem service manual for it if not we can tell you the torque sequence you have to be careful of the two under cylinder 6 they have a lower torque value so you don't distort that cylinder and you need a 16mm torque adapter for your wrench but a 5/8' one will work ok to .Make sure you get the right otiker clamps and tool to replace the factory ones where you remove them there's two or three different sizes all metric and stainless steel the other stuff is radius head 6" zip ties . undo the shifter out at the slide its easier there than at the vertical shaft running down the leg to the lower unit don't overtighten the 10 mm nut when you put it back on snug and back off a half turn or so. it's actually easier to do the job with the lower out because you don't have the crankshaft splines to line up but if nothing was moved that probably won't be a big issue. As far as the gasket if it's the old original one I understand they can be a pain to scrape off the big thing is to try and do no or minimal damage to the gasket surfaces the block is unpainted and needs to be clean you can remove the 10 mm studs to make it easier then reinstall them after with 271 red loctite the adapter plate needs to be brought back to factory condition sanding and feathering out any irregularities then zinc chromate primer and a few coats of phantom black mercury engine paint let it dry overnight .You have to be fussy about this because it's your water seal between the block and adapter plate if it leaks after you get it together you will be pissed off lol try and use soft tools to scrape plastic razor blades etc not sure if gasket remover would put a dent in it or not but might be worth trying if it's real stubborn anyway if we can help you in any way let us know and good luck take your time don't force anything and take a bunch of pictures with your phone as you are taking it apart.
I believe you have two options for the crank seals if your changing those two you can get the individual seals and Oring and install them in your housing (make sure the mounting surfaces are flat on it check with a straight edge ) or you can get the whole housing with seals and Oring already installed a lot of people do this because they don't want to mess with the seals . The seals go in both lips facing down with loctite 271 around flange when installing back on the block make sure to lube the oring and the seal lips put a little on the crank sleeve and blue Loctite on the four bolts push the housing on start the bolts an pull up squarely using a socket in a criss cross pattern very slowly so it moves up evenly then torgue to oem spec and you are done
Would a bad lower crankshaft seal cause a issue with the sensors like Map or air sensor and tell the ECU to give more fuel when accelerating the throttle. My seal was bad and my main symptom was excessive flow rate compared to the Starboard motor, almost double the fuel rate at 4000rpm. The smell of fuel was overwhelming coming out the exhaust
I would say no it would not have that effect on your motor running as you describe. I would pull the plugs out of it and see if they all look the same or if any are really wet or carboned up more than the others also do a spark test to make sure all the coils are good and firing you could have a dead cylinder. You can check that your TPS is functioning correctly with an ohm meter it can cause a rich condition if it's not sensing the throttle position properly also a good possibility you may have a bad injector maybe more than one that's dirty and stuck you can pull those and have somebody reputable that does marine stuff clean and flow test them to make sure they are in tolerance. You might have to get someone to plug a diagnostic tool into it that would narrow it down quick if the stuff above checked out ok.
@@chrisholmes1666 Unfortunately I sent off the air and fuel injectors to get tested cleaned/flowed. The report came back they were fine, I also did a complete coil plate swap from motor to motor to see if that was the problem, it wasn't the coils, I swapped TPS from starboard to port and that didn't work, I swapped the complete VST and that didn't work, Just replaced the bottom cranks seal yesterday, it was bad with chunks of rubber in it just like your video. Will test tomorrow mornig. Will report back with results. We connected a Mercury DDT to the ECU and ran it thru a diagnostic test, it had no faults, also did a coil drop test with no luck. hopefully tomorrow I will learn more.
@@jmatak9 It sounds like you have done a lot of work trying to diagnose it . Very handy to have the other motor to swap parts from to see if you can isolate or have the problem move to the second motor hopefully you can get it figured out and end the frustration and for sure please report back how you make out . Have you had a ddt on it while on the water? if not that might be a good move but it is strange that it doesn't have any stored faults being as rich as it sounds .
@@chrisholmes1666 Thanks for responding, plugs are very similar in color but wet, I replaced the with new NGK's gapped to 44, its dumping fuel out the exhaust, I'm wondering if the lightened flywheel that was put on when we dropped the powerhead on wasn't torqued correctly and partially sheared the key way?? This would mess up the timing and have the ECU dump more fuel. Going to check on that and get back to you.
@@chrisholmes1666 hopefully will get it on the water tomorrow, I'm thinking its a relay/regulator issue now or possibly a battery issue, I've learned that these 300xs motors need a good strong battery to function good. Thanks
A rough guess would be 350- 450 dollars canadian money for the parts powerhead gasket- seals-otiker clamps and paint for the exhaust adapter plate. The powerhead gasket is expensive . You can buy the lower cap as an assembly if its available with the seals already installed so you don't have to mess with that they weren't in stock when we did this so we opted for the seals individually .
dunno if it's a good idea to paint a machined surface ...if they aren't painted from factory is because you dont need to. the best method is just clean it all with plastic razor or plastic brush wheel (the tinny ones from dremel) and it's good to go. btw: silicone paste is super safe on pretty much every rubber or plastic
@@FishingOntarioah ok, didn't heard the explanation the first time I've watched . Those are teflon oil seals ? They recommend any lube on them in the manual ?
@@Danidasanic I don't believe they are teflon as far as lube mercury says 2-4-c grease in the void between the two seals and a small amount on the crank sleeve same on the Oring some premium plus two stroke oil or light coat of 2-4-C grease before installing and torgueing into place
Just saw these. Sorry you guys are having to go thru all this stuff. Your dad is an amazing mechanic. Good luck from Baton Rouge, Louisiana with the repairs!
Thanks so much for the kind words. It's our hope that some of this might help and encourage people to work on their own stuff if they can see what's involved. Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment .
Thanks for the support!!
Another excellent video! Looking forward to the next one!
Appreciate you watching and the kind words!
Looking forward to your next video!
Working on it currently!
Parabéns ..por favor quando fazer as trocas das peças favor passar os códigos
Thanks for watching and commenting. Mercury uses the serial number off your motor to identify the correct parts for your motor they do not use the year .Also they supersede the numbers very often so a number we put up in the video may not be current for that part now.
Love these hands-on videos. I may have missed it in the video but how did you know the seal was leaking in the first place?
We appreciate you watching! We found it when I was unfortunately not recording. We pulled the lower unit and the top of the impeller housing and drive shaft we’re covered in DFI oil, as was the inside of the leg.
Awesome it so interesting how optimax are a job security for mercury
Here’s what I had with my 2004 175 optimax crankshaft sleeve it fall off the and I wasn’t able to reinstalled the lower unit
Oh ya, we’re funding some Mercury executive’s new yatch with all the money we’ve had to throw at this thing😂
How did you fix this? Did you have to pull the powerhead also?
@rashadgriffith7792 Yep, pulled the power head and replaced the parts
If rubber has made it down to one of your main caps It has probably also made it into your main bearings or your wristpin bearings. honestly if it were me, I would just be breaking that block down to clean it and possibly rehone it. Throw a new set of rings in it and check bearing/surface tolerances and replace as necessary. it will be like a rebuilt long block...
Thank you for watching and commenting we had the same concerns and thoughts as you eventually we ended up pulling the intake plenum and reed plate out and were able to get a good look at the crank and rods and it was not as bad as we expected . It ended up getting new reeds because one was cracked cleaned up and put back together we ran it for a few months this summer and fall and it runs great . I was able to talk to a couple people that work on them regularly and they said the rubber is not a big concern to them they see it on all of them to some extent as the belt wears rubber dust accumulates around the throttle body and plate area and some enters the intake as there's no filter to stop that .When there's a belt failure you do get bigger chunks that take a long time to dig out it gets everywhere .
Awesome video. I am getting ready to take on this exact same task on my 250 Pro XS. My powerhead base gasket is original. Hopefully it isn’t a nightmare. My motor only has 110 hours on it. Im hoping this isn’t something that will need to be done again anytime soon. Have you had a chance to run it? No oil leak?
First off I’d lie to just say thankyou for watching! If one person finds this video useful, it was worth our effort to make it. We do have the motor running now, and all seems to be well, no leaks so far!
Great news! It’s also really cool that you get to hang out and work on stuff with your dad. Cherish those moments. I’ll be watching for more content. 👍🏻
@tobytester2674 Very true my man! As long as people like you are interested in watching, we’ll keep making videos. Cheers! 🍻
Hi It's not a terrible job Do you have the oem service manual for it if not we can tell you the torque sequence you have to be careful of the two under cylinder 6 they have a lower torque value so you don't distort that cylinder and you need a 16mm torque adapter for your wrench but a 5/8' one will work ok to .Make sure you get the right otiker clamps and tool to replace the factory ones where you remove them there's two or three different sizes all metric and stainless steel the other stuff is radius head 6" zip ties . undo the shifter out at the slide its easier there than at the vertical shaft running down the leg to the lower unit don't overtighten the 10 mm nut when you put it back on snug and back off a half turn or so. it's actually easier to do the job with the lower out because you don't have the crankshaft splines to line up but if nothing was moved that probably won't be a big issue. As far as the gasket if it's the old original one I understand they can be a pain to scrape off the big thing is to try and do no or minimal damage to the gasket surfaces the block is unpainted and needs to be clean you can remove the 10 mm studs to make it easier then reinstall them after with 271 red loctite the adapter plate needs to be brought back to factory condition sanding and feathering out any irregularities then zinc chromate primer and a few coats of phantom black mercury engine paint let it dry overnight .You have to be fussy about this because it's your water seal between the block and adapter plate if it leaks after you get it together you will be pissed off lol try and use soft tools to scrape plastic razor blades etc not sure if gasket remover would put a dent in it or not but might be worth trying if it's real stubborn anyway if we can help you in any way let us know and good luck take your time don't force anything and take a bunch of pictures with your phone as you are taking it apart.
I believe you have two options for the crank seals if your changing those two you can get the individual seals and Oring and install them in your housing (make sure the mounting surfaces are flat on it check with a straight edge ) or you can get the whole housing with seals and Oring already installed a lot of people do this because they don't want to mess with the seals . The seals go in both lips facing down with loctite 271 around flange when installing back on the block make sure to lube the oring and the seal lips put a little on the crank sleeve and blue Loctite on the four bolts push the housing on start the bolts an pull up squarely using a socket in a criss cross pattern very slowly so it moves up evenly then torgue to oem spec and you are done
Can you please point out where in the service manual it calls out painting the exhaust plate? I can’t seem to find it.
I’ll try to comb through and find it
@@FishingOntario thank you. I’m sure I’m just overlooking it
Would a bad lower crankshaft seal cause a issue with the sensors like Map or air sensor and tell the ECU to give more fuel when accelerating the throttle. My seal was bad and my main symptom was excessive flow rate compared to the Starboard motor, almost double the fuel rate at 4000rpm. The smell of fuel was overwhelming coming out the exhaust
I would say no it would not have that effect on your motor running as you describe. I would pull the plugs out of it and see if they all look the same or if any are really wet or carboned up more than the others also do a spark test to make sure all the coils are good and firing you could have a dead cylinder. You can check that your TPS is functioning correctly with an ohm meter it can cause a rich condition if it's not sensing the throttle position properly also a good possibility you may have a bad injector maybe more than one that's dirty and stuck you can pull those and have somebody reputable that does marine stuff clean and flow test them to make sure they are in tolerance. You might have to get someone to plug a diagnostic tool into it that would narrow it down quick if the stuff above checked out ok.
@@chrisholmes1666 Unfortunately I sent off the air and fuel injectors to get tested cleaned/flowed. The report came back they were fine, I also did a complete coil plate swap from motor to motor to see if that was the problem, it wasn't the coils, I swapped TPS from starboard to port and that didn't work, I swapped the complete VST and that didn't work, Just replaced the bottom cranks seal yesterday, it was bad with chunks of rubber in it just like your video. Will test tomorrow mornig. Will report back with results. We connected a Mercury DDT to the ECU and ran it thru a diagnostic test, it had no faults, also did a coil drop test with no luck. hopefully tomorrow I will learn more.
@@jmatak9 It sounds like you have done a lot of work trying to diagnose it . Very handy to have the other motor to swap parts from to see if you can isolate or have the problem move to the second motor hopefully you can get it figured out and end the frustration and for sure please report back how you make out . Have you had a ddt on it while on the water? if not that might be a good move but it is strange that it doesn't have any stored faults being as rich as it sounds .
@@chrisholmes1666 Thanks for responding, plugs are very similar in color but wet, I replaced the with new NGK's gapped to 44, its dumping fuel out the exhaust, I'm wondering if the lightened flywheel that was put on when we dropped the powerhead on wasn't torqued correctly and partially sheared the key way?? This would mess up the timing and have the ECU dump more fuel. Going to check on that and get back to you.
@@chrisholmes1666 hopefully will get it on the water tomorrow, I'm thinking its a relay/regulator issue now or possibly a battery issue, I've learned that these 300xs motors need a good strong battery to function good. Thanks
Any idea of the total cost of this job roughly?
A rough guess would be 350- 450 dollars canadian money for the parts powerhead gasket- seals-otiker clamps and paint for the exhaust adapter plate. The powerhead gasket is expensive . You can buy the lower cap as an assembly if its available with the seals already installed so you don't have to mess with that they weren't in stock when we did this so we opted for the seals individually .
Appreciate the follow up. Way cheaper than I expected actually
Looks like my dad beat me to the punch on replying, so thanks for watching!
dunno if it's a good idea to paint a machined surface ...if they aren't painted from factory is because you dont need to. the best method is just clean it all with plastic razor or plastic brush wheel (the tinny ones from dremel) and it's good to go. btw: silicone paste is super safe on pretty much every rubber or plastic
They are 100% painted from factory, and it states to paint the surface right in the Merc service manual.
@@FishingOntarioah ok, didn't heard the explanation the first time I've watched . Those are teflon oil seals ? They recommend any lube on them in the manual ?
@@Danidasanic I don't believe they are teflon as far as lube mercury says 2-4-c grease in the void between the two seals and a small amount on the crank sleeve same on the Oring some premium plus two stroke oil or light coat of 2-4-C grease before installing and torgueing into place