Posts: 656
Location: Forest Lake, Mn. | I'll relate my experiences of a few years ago and let you decide. I had a 1992 Merc 40 horse 2 stroke that I had rebuilt. Big mistake.
In '98 I took a trip up to Lac Seul and made the run up to the outpost camp. Got to the camp unloaded the boat and started out fishing got about a mile from the camp,runing at planning speed, and the motor died. Restarted it just fine, put it back on plane and died again. Did this a few times and went back to camp, didn't even fish.
Turns out that the fuel line from the filter to the carb had rotted out and there was a hole in it. Just enough gas got thru to run at slow speed but open it up and she sucked air into the cylinder and scorched one of them. Limped about with it all week as there wasn't anyway to fix it and being at an outpost there wasn't anyway to go home until someone guided me out.
Got home, had it looked at and was told that I could junk it or rebuild it. Decided that we should rebuild as it was cheaper than a new motor. Had it rebuilt for around $2,000. with a 1 year warrenty on the work. After a couple of weeks off the water waiting for the rebuild I got it back and it ran fine for the rest of the fall. But I had 1 week in Canada ruined and lost 2 weeks fishing at home.
Next summer I went to the Canadian side of LoTW for a week. The motor was just out of warrenty from the rebuild, and it started to bog down at high speeds, slow speeds it ran fine. Sound familiar? Had it checked by a mechanic in Canada. He found that the block was now cracked. Apparently when the cylinder was reboared during the rebuild the walls were a little to thin and the heat cracked the block. Time to junk it.
So now I have had 2 week trips to Canada screwed up, lost a few weeks fishing at home while waiting for the rebuild, paid $2,000 for the rebuild and I still don't have a working reliable motor to fish with. The guy who rebuilt it said that he could put a new block on it. Gee, what a surprise.
I junked the motor and went and bought a new Yamaha 4 stroke. Should have done that in the first place. I would have saved the rebuild costs and not lost more time on the water.
My advice,spend the money and get a new motor. You'll be ahead in the long run.
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