CRITICAL INFO for FL 120 owners

[jleonard]

While on my vacation to Block Island over the past week, an interesting thing happened to a friend's trawler (Marine Trader) that has a Ford Lehman 120 in it.
He was backing off a town mooring to get a different one and his engine stalled. He restarted and grabbed the new mooring. The tranny didn't feel right and the engine would not idle down or shut off. So he lifeted the engine hatch and shut down manually. He thought he ran over a line.
Yes he did, a loose wad of line his first mate accidentally left on the rail. Oops, but that's not the morale of this story.

To make a long story short, he did in fact wrap a line around his prop and shaft. The TowBoat guy dove and cut it free. It was partially melted as expected.
However......it pulled the engine completely off it mounts! The engine is now 3 or 4 inches farther aft!!!!! He got towed back to Mystic on his towing insurance, no problem there.

Now the worst part....we met with 2 other trawler owners with single FL 120s. They BOTH have had their engines pulled off the mounts when they wrapped a line!! (the other two wrapped up either crab or lobster lines)

So of the 4 of us, 3 others had the engine pull off the mounts. I was the only one who did not suffer that disaster. 75% did!!

Morale of the story...REPLACE your old engine mounts..NOW! One "expert" I tallked to said it is supposedly common knowledge that the mounts should be replaced every 6 to 7 years. I had never heard this.

Now the irony....on the way over to Block on saturday, before this happened, I was telling my first mate that I planned on replacing oour mounts this winter. Now this moved up the priority ladder.

[lmustico]

Any idea of the cost to do this? It has been on my to do list for a couple of years now.
Providence
Albin 33
Georgetown, MD

[brookesmith]

Cost of Motors mounts were $40 ish each December 2010. That's not too bad. But the yard took 15!!!! hours labor to change them. I thought that was a little excessive and considered that I could have bought a book and learned how to do them myself. I don't think it's that difficult.

[Marcy K]

Wow - what a story. I missed it when first posted because we were still away on an extended cruise. Our motor mounts are being changed right now because the turbo & transmission are out of the boat to replace a rear main oil seal that was leaking and it seemed like the right time to do the motor mounts too and am very glad that we are! Will be replacing the bilge pump down there too and cleaning and painting the bilge under the engine, transmission and turbo - my job! We will essentially have a "new" 25 year old boat when we are done (especially after last winter's list). Hope to meet many of you at the Coecles Harbor rendezvous this summer.

Marcy K
A 34 Paumanok
Westbrook, CT

[Daryl]

I replaced the motor mounts on my 135 Lehman in 2003. Last year I wrapped a line on the shaft and stalled the engine. I was able to cut it off and unwrap with a good knife. The motor didn't move and the mounts are still fine so I wouldn't rush into the seven year change plan. That sound like the 3000 mile oil change plan for your car. Only the service guys win here.