1997 gl 150 rod gone through the front half

[Ricky McAllister]

Bottom pic is OEM. Sleeve Note the half circle is centered in cast body. Top pic: is sleeve insert aftermarket. Note the offset of the half circle. I will have more pics once I have all pistons out.

[Ricky McAllister]

I have the crank case off now. Tomorrow I will have more pics. This is my first time having a power head opened up, and I feel like I have to inspect everything now. I will be replacing all 12 of the rod cap bolts. They both snapped at the heads. There is new rings on all pistons and one new sleeve.. see.. this is what I've found so far.. blown rod: stern side- center. New sleeve insert : starboard side - center. It looks to.me the sleeve in out in offset anout an 1/16", to an 1/8". Would this have cause such an immediate failure?

[TEXAS20225]

sleeve insert ???? no such animal im aware of the sleeves are all the same either la sleeves or oem or advance! im sure there are other suppliers of various quality that i dont know( about la's being the worst quality of all of them)!! are you saying it only covers half the bore ?? i guess im not understanding what your saying sorry. im also no rookie as ive rebuilt over 400 mercury v6 motors and a great quantity have been with all 6 sleeves being replaced

[TEXAS20225]

all the sleeves are replaceable !!! the block is heated up to 450 so for a hour or what ever is needed the sleeve since its steel heats up slower then the block which is aluminum when proper temp is reached sleeves sometimes just fall out some times not or you could do it like ruck he cut the old sleeves out and made them all over size on the od to ensure heat transfer then he only heated it once instead of twice one to remove the other to replace this is the way mercury installs them at factory

[Nitro25]

Looks like the sleeve migrated and twisted a bit. Did the rod kiss the bottom of the sleeve? Send many more pictures. Measure from the block deck to the top of the sleeve with a caliper or depth gauge and send some pics of that. Send pics of piston & Rod too. Hard to believe that both rod bolts snapped right at the head at idle.

[Nitro25]

I have the crank case off now. Tomorrow I will have more pics. This is my first time having a power head opened up, and I feel like I have to inspect everything now. I will be replacing all 12 of the rod cap bolts. They both snapped at the heads. There is new rings on all pistons and one new sleeve.. see.. this is what I've found so far.. blown rod: stern side- center. New sleeve insert : starboard side - center. It looks to.me the sleeve in out in offset anout an 1/16", to an 1/8". Would this have cause such an immediate failure?

I'm having a hard time following you. Did the failure happen in the cylinder with the new sleeve? Could a sleeve cause a failure? .. Sure, if it dropped down far enough to capture the rod (if that's possible) ... but you would see major damage at the bottom of the sleeve and a kiss mark on the rod big time. If a sleeve turned far enough to catch a ring, it probably just break the ring and score the heck out of the cylinder, but not snap rod bolt heads. What rpm was this turning when it failed?

[Ricky McAllister]

Sry guys. Correction. First and only fire up was at idle. 30 sec of run time. 2 big knocks and immediately locked up and stalled. Never turn motor over again. Found both heads of the cod rod bolts in the crank area. Both sheared at the rod cap. ( at the heads) I had to remove one of the bolt studs, just to remove the con rod, due to it sticking out through the crank case. It was threaded in deep as per usual. Piston came out fine with no damage at all. Only the case has a few bruises and a hole in it. 2nd::, the motor has have a new sleeve installed in one of the cylinders. It's nothing to do with the rod damage, just came across to point it out that I've noticed a slight difference in placement of the new sleeve. Seems to be inserted slightly twisted. Other then that, it's all ok. It's easy to see the difference from the OEM sleeves, and the one that got replaced.

[Ricky McAllister]

The cylinder with rod failure, and cylinder with new sleeve are different cylinders but they are both the center cylinders.

[Ricky McAllister]

I will be working on it in the next few days. I will take lots of pictures and send them this way. I will be putting in a used rod from my old 90' 115 johnson crossflow. Cross reference the number. Same part

[Nitro25]

I will be working on it in the next few days. I will take lots of pictures and send them this way. I will be putting in a used rod from my old 90' 115 johnson crossflow. Cross reference the number. Same part

If the cranks not hurt, and that sleeve isn't obscuring any ports or too low on the deck, weld it up ang go.

[Ricky McAllister]

Notice almost all the caps have an edge to them.. not good. How would I know they are even correctly matched?

[Ricky McAllister]

Damage on journal

[TEXAS20225]

if sleeve was installed with out proper offset they will spin in the register but normally it has to be hot but it could not be hot if ir t only ran 30 seconds ??? it will never run without perfectly matching rods and caps!!

[Merc 2.5]

^^^this. Gotta match perfect ,if u can feel any kind of edge it wrong,, also kinda sounds like someone put to much torque on torque to yield bolts and stretched em to far? A tty bolt will snap at the head everytime

[Nitro25]

The Rods are machined as one piece and then they are broken creating the rod cap itself. The break pattern is like a finger print, no two alike, and that is why you can't interchange them or install them 180* out. The cap & rods used to be rough ground at the factory, and we used to have to feel for proper alignment when installing them. Back in the eighties OMC started fine machining the flats and came out with an alignment tool that would index on the flats and draw the cap into alignment with its rod, and then you would torque the cap. If you're feeling lip or ledge on the parting line, this special tool was probably not used, or used improperly. If you see any gap on the parting line, its the wrong cap on the rod, or the cap is 180* out on the rod. There are two cast in dimples that are supposed to be adjacent to each other one on the cap and one on the rod that indicate cap orientation. If any caps were torqued 180* out or on the wrong rod, throw the rod away, it's ruined. As far as the crank picture is concerned, it looks like the crank is a damaged and not usable, there's severe galling (Left side of journal in pic) and signs of bearing wiping on the journal. Also there appears to be previous damage to the labyrinth seal boss on the cylinder above. This damage sure doesn't look like 30 seconds on a flushett, I think it was already there. But pics can be decieving, I'd have to eyeball it in person.

But at this point I'm not real warm & fuzzy about the quality of this rebuild.

As far as the block, be sure to check the deck in relation to that new sleeve with a straight edge.

D.