280 Rod bearings destroyed

[Jay Smith]

I just had customer bring a 1999 280 with low hr ( 140 hrs ) and wanted the motor freshened up and some Hi Per mods. When I got the motor down to the splitting the cases I rolled the crank over and the motor felt TOO tight. When I took the rod apart fom the crank the big end rod bearing was in 6 pieces. The cage that holds the needles in place was broke in 6 pieces.Thank God the crank and rod were not hurt. People I am here to tell EVERYONE
of these MERCURY Hi Per medal ( not plastic ) cages were ALL destroyed. ( ALL 6 rod bearings cages were toast ) and also the Nicom was gritty and at the top of the bore was smoked too. I'm having to sent this P.O.S. back to US chrome to be recoated and I called my Mercury dealer buddy and he had not ever heard of any thing like that, I am posting to see if any of you guys have seen or heard of such a thing !

Thanks for any imformation or a related situation !

Jay @ JSRE

[Brendan Power]

Are they the dimpled steel bearing cages ?
BRENDAN

[Jay Smith]

YEP, the best mother Mercury has to offer! Sucks don't it Brendon ? Ya buy the best offered and it STILL fails ( ALL of them )!

Jay @ JSRE

[Brendan Power]

Call me in an hour of two and I will tell you about them.
Brendan 636 326 9802

[Firestarter]

Jay almost EVERY 280 that runs around here has had a catastropic failure, all have been rod related. And all have been in the 100- 150 hrs range.
The 260 will far oultlast the 280 in our experiance.

RT

[TUG]

I had the same thing happen to me right after i put my 260 together, only it was the standard fishing motor bearings!! I had been running the motor for a while and pulled the horn and reedplate off to inspect and notoiced threw the end of a rodcap that 1 rib on the cage was cracked. When i pulled the motor apart, all 6 cages were in pieces but none of it had seemed to come out from the rod and the needles were fine???? But the cages were in multiple pieces?? I would pull each rodcap off and the stuff just fell out all over, THANK GOD i saw this!! I went to the regular Ones like the ones you are describing and havent had it happen again YET:(

[Greg Moss]

The bearings I use are OMCs from the 70hp They fit and have had no problems at all.

[Greg Moss]

OMCs number is 388344 They work and OMC parts in a merc have to make them last longerLOL

[Rickracer]

What else can I say:D :D :D :D

Greg, you da man, ;)

[H2Onut]

Remember Ricky..That DARK side calls, It beckons you, You have been assimilated....Get rid of that past life....move forward~

[H2OPERF]

Its funny the omc and merc bearings are the same,the pro marine catalogue list them both but the prices are different.

[Rodney Nance]

Jay this is just a "WAG" but if it has been firing at the wrong time It would explain the weirdness in the top of the cylinders and could be causing the bearing problem as well if it is loading the rotating mass when its at the wrong angle. Let us know what you find out.

[Jay Smith]

Will do Rodney I got some pretty good scoop from a reliable sorce that Mercury had a vendor that supplyed the wrong heat on some supplied bearings cages that went into some of the year model 280's. ( Would'nt that give you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside if you owned one of these suspect motors ? ) A person pays these ridulious prices and get substandard parts in the motor , all unaware he's getting sold a bill of goods! And all Mercury does is PRAY it make it past warranty! That's Q.C. in reverse!! Now I don't know this to be a fact but all these failures that are rod related sort of points to a common problem that is indeginous to these bearings !

Call me sometimes when ya sober up , Ha Ha Ha !!!!
See Ya,

Your buddy ,
Jay @ JSRE

[Flat Out]

Like Firewalker said, a few motors have had problems up here.
Last spring a good pal of ours had a problem with his 280 on a very nice Allison. 100+ hrs on the motor, well cared for good gas,oil etc. according to the info on the computer less then 1% running time at full throttle.
While cruising along 60 mph the motor EXPLODED. One hole on each side of the block. The starter motor looked like someone shot a bullet into it, nice dent. Try denting a starter motor. Of course no warranty. He likely had bad bearings as described.
I like the OMC fix.

[Firestarter]

Sean, that is 1 of 7 that I know of--------only 1 was under warranty.

RT

[Flat Out]

I was talking to our friend as I was posting, his is a '99. It would be interesting to compare serial # s of affected motors. Should people pull thier air horns and reeds to inspect the cages before the spring thaw? A little work now beats a blown motor later.

[Greg Moss]

All the time the dealers around here bad mouth me for using aftermarket parts in the motors I build. they claim nothing is as good as factory parts. Sure there not. Look at the problem with genuine Mercury parts in the 280s they have had that bearing problem ever since they tried the plastic retainers remember how many of them failed. They better get their **** together with bombardier in the outboard market.

[Firestarter]

I saw our friends at SpdMstr and it looks like it came apart on the piston end. It was tough to tell, as it was pretty wrecked.

RT

[Flat Out]

I saw the pics at the boat show. Looked bad. He has the lump at home. I told him he could make a real expensive coffee table out of it.

[randy 77zt]

i am a tech at a ford dealer and this stuuf happens all of the time.its going on in ford focus rear wheel bearings right know.problem is manufacture buying cheapest parts to cut cost on unit to make more money.most bearings are outsourced to a bearing company like timken,***,or other bearing company.mercury didnt do a qc check on that batch of bearings .they probably looked fine when new.i have a 2.5 efi that is stamped with build date 2/96-is it a 260 or 280?has big throttle /air horn,no alternator,bungee cowling.thats whats great about this forum-it warns you what to look for.

[Balzy]

260

[sosmerc]

Seems like a major problem in our society today....everything gets "farmed out" to lowest bidder and "qc" is seriously lacking...how in the f*&#@ did we ever get to the moon and back?!!

[Techno]

By the lowest bidder!
And a few astronauts thought about this at take off!

But remember that its lowest bidder to a
spec.

[randy 77zt]

i think the least merc could do is recall the motors for new rod bearings.but they wont because the 280 is a race engine and they didnt make enough to get a loud public out cry like firestone widerness at explorer tires.if bombardier puts some heat on merc some day they will have to step up .

[B.Leonard]

Is it essential to reassemble the motor with the rod bearings on the same rod that it was on? Just wondering with needle type bearings assuming the bearings have very low hours and the crank is in good shape. Doesn't seem like it should be a problem.

Trying to reuse what I can on my 2.6.

-BL

[sosmerc]

you should get some interesting answers. Working for dealers in the past and therefore (going by the factory book) I have always replaced bearings.
But if there is no visible wear or defect to either the bearings or the surface they ride on, why shouldn't one be able to reuse them...and you would think the tolerances are such that they should be able to go back in use on any rod that checks ok. I have done it on my personal engines many times without problems. On the other hand...I don't think mixing pistons amongst the different "used" cylinders would be at all good unless you have done some very accurate measuring.

[TUG]

It doesnt matter which way or which rod you put the bearings on. A roller bearing is either bad or good, there's no inbetween. Ive never seen a caged roller rod bearing that had actual wear on it, they either go or Blow:eek: I have seen the races on the crank mains wear thow.