to pull the motor or not?

[all yeah boy]

I plan to start the restore of a 1975 arrow glass cheetah. It a fiberglass boat, with a 6 cyl mercury I/o. The previous owner had begun to tear up the deck which is nice, save me some sweat! it will need new stringers and a new deck, my question is about the transom.....

I will have to pull the top cap to re-do the stringers, but I would really like to avoid pulling the motor in order to put a new transom in. This is my second restore, the first was a fiberglass boat with an outboard which made pulling the motor easy. The I/O is a lot more complex, and involves hoisting the motor out of the boat and most importantly putting it back in correctly!

What are your guys thoughts? Pros to pulling it, cons to not and vice versa...

 

[tallcanadian]

Re: to pull the motor or not?

Pics pics, need some pics. How's the transom?

 

[scott11]

Re: to pull the motor or not?

Since its an i/o you would probably be best to remove the motor. Im dealing with the same thing in my boat and to completely replace my transom the motor def. has to be removed to have full access to the transom. I decided to put mine off until the spring since the snow started falling so im not sure how hard its going to be to remove the motor.

 

[Spinnaker]

Re: to pull the motor or not?

If you have to then you have to. Check the transom and see it it is punky. If so then out shell have to come. It's not as scary as it seems. It's basically 3 steps to remove. First the drive, then the engine and then the transom plate. It will be easy as long as you are not changing anything. The only 2 concerns are making sure she is sealed upon re-installation and alignment. A Sierra alignment tool is only $60.00. The guys here can certainly help out with this.

 

[all yeah boy]

Re: to pull the motor or not?

Yeah I guess when you think about it in an engineering sense it is simple, but praticial application is what I am afraid of!

I need to check it and see how bad it or not the transom really is. I am getting the boat towed to my new residence in late feb, will post pics then and start a thread about the restore.

I am stoked about this boat very cool lines on it. also have a complete set of spare parts for the motor including outdrive, I found a junker on craigslist for cheap and tore all the parts out of it. So I may go for the whole process. After all with enough time patience and some cash anything is possible!

 

[smokeonthewater]

Re: to pull the motor or not?

it will take you far longer to make the decision than it will take to pull the engine when you finally realize that it does indeed need to come out.... you have a plug on top a couple batt cables a water hose a fuel line 2 power steering hoses (if you have pwr steering) a couple hose clamps on the exhaust two rear motor mount bolts 1 front mount a couple grounds in the rear..... check for anything missed after engine is free but before you move it far.... It takes me 15 minutes to pull the merc v8 in my carver.... with basic mech ability but no experience two guys should be able to pull it in an hour easy

it is much easier to pull the engine if the outdrive is off first