Thought I’d try here before posting on the Mercury 2.4 board.
Just about done with the mechanical/operational stuff on this 89 183 I’m rehabbing and onto cosmetics. Been interesting for sure - most cables/wires going to the batteries just had bare wires wrapped around posts or to each other, in-line fuses wires to inline fuses and so on. No gauges, pumps, etc worked and have brought that all back to life just by re-wiring. Sand and buff supplies ready to go, vinyl samples from Mary Kay on the way and new carpet will be ordered once I decide on the seat color. Two 9” Elite TI2 waiting to be installed after the cosmetics are done (was going to wait on the electronics but Walmart has them on sale for $600 so went for it.)
Had to replace the trim motor and found the previous owner had the motor buried at 8” below pad. Brought it up to 4”, need to move the motor up on the jackplate to get it higher than that which I will do (still have the lifting ring from when I installed a hydraulic plate on my previous Intimidator). Ran really good the one time I had it out, jumps on plane in 2 seconds and ran it up to about 60.
So onto my question finally - I’m going to service the lower unit this weekend but someone locally has a 88 200 Black Max lower with what appears to me to be low water pickup (picture attached). I believe the 200 lower has different gears than the 150 - would I do myself any good adding this lower and re-propping or will the 150 just not have enough power to swing the 200 gears?
Happy to be back in the G family even if only in an old 183 (for now LOL). Nowhere near the same boat as my Intimidator but it’ll look good once I’m done and with the deck extension the front deck is actually pretty large especially for a 18’ boat.
LOL I didn’t buy it. I ended up needing a new lower regardless because the very last thing I did after the restore was go to change the gear case fluid and found nothing but water in it. Froze over the winter, cracked the bearing carrier assembly and who knows what else was tore up inside. Didn’t expect that because it ran really well when I bought it and the one time I had it out after but there was zero gear fluid in it. Managed to find a remanufactured same larger gear case with 1.87 gears (which is not the stock lower on an 88 Mag II 150) so I was able to just bolt it on and the setup didn’t change.
She’s all done now, running great, and I like to think she’s one of the better looking 183s running around. I’ve posted some pics on the Gambler Facebook page if anyone is interested. Now time to play with motor height and props!
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