Omc vs mercury parts

[ryanjames170]

Anyone know why on earth a person can still get most parts for Omc motors but getting stuff for mercurys is such a pain.. is there a real historical reason or is it something on the level of dumb?

[mercuryman]

I think it has to do with numbers, that is more OMC than Mercury

[ryanjames170]

quote mercuryman:

I think it has to do with numbers, that is more OMC than Mercury

i had wondered if that was the case and would explain why i can find johnsons way more then i can merc’s

[jw-in-dixie]

I think a lot of early Mercs were worn out and used up racing. Plus the plain steel lower unit shafts quickly rusted if not maintained properly. OMCs were so well established, Merc had a hard time getting dealers. Just MHO.

[ryanjames170]

i could agree with the used up in racing as you see alot of racing merc’s

kinda why im shifting my attention more to OMC vs mercury in the 50’s dont get me wrong i really like the merc’s just not much you can do with a engine when you cant get parts for it. kinda been fighting that with my Wizard.. cring for the day the mags go out or points.. love the little thing though.

thinking my new engine of love will be my Johnson 10HP though was a sate owned engine at some point. wish i could read more of what i said to see what part of the sate had it though.

[outbdnut2]

Back in the 1950s/1960s, at our family lake cabin, Johnsons and Evinrudes outnumbered Mercurys by about 10 to 1. I remember the reason most people did not buy Mercurys was the noise level – they were faster than Johnsons , but much noisier. There were a couple people on the lake that bought 60 HP Merc "dockbusters" with no gearshift – these people switched to Johnson or Evinrude a couple years later and vowed they would never buy another Mercury, as the reversing powerhead turned them off, even though Mercury added a shift a couple years later.
–
Waterskiing was the big up and coming thing back then, and, although Mercurys were usually faster, Johnson/Evinrude had more low end torque for pulling up skiers – maybe in part because most or maybe all of the Mercs came standard with a 2-blade prop, and people weren’t much into buying another prop back then. Dad bought a new 20 HP Merc in 1958, and it struggled to pull him in skis, while our neighbor, with an 18 Johnson on a similar boat puled him up easily, and pulled two of us teenagers out of the water routinely. The 4 cyl 40 Merc was good on the low end, but a most of people on our lake were buying 18-30 HP back in the 1950s, as boats were smaller. FYI: Dad’s 20 Merc was a big lemon and was in the shop every couple weeks for warranty repair. We ran it a lot – maybe 4 tanks a week. Spark plugs fouled often and the dealer told us to use Mercury Quicksilver oil (yes they had it in the 1950s) and white marine gas (unleaded – hard to find then). This did keep the spark plugs clean, but it was cheaper to buy new spark plugs and keep replacing them. Dad bought a used 30 Johnson the next year and swore he’d never buy another Mercury.
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So yes – it’s a numbers thing – demand for old Merc parts is not as big because there aren’t as many around. It’s too bad because they make for nice collector motors on old boats.
Dave

[chas56x]

I am in the process of restoring a 1957 Wizard 25hp. I did not have any problems finding the parts I needed, i.e., carb kits, ignition parts, water pump and seals, fuel lines, fuel pump rebuild kits, and gaskets. I just had to look for them and find the guys who were selling the parts. The parts are out there, you just have to dig for them.

[johnyrude200]

Well, Mercury (BRP) owns Evinrude now, so I’ll preface my statements with that.

I picked up an early 80’s merc 70hp a month ago and couldn’t believe I could even lift it up. I primarily work on OMC’s, to the tune of about 150-250 annually between service orders and old motor sales. A 70hp OMC weighs 253lbs with PT/T. This merc was so light it felt like an OMC 50hp without trim (about 175lbs).

So to tie my rambling into your question. From my understanding of mercs circa 1970’s and 1980’s. These blocks don’t have iron sleeves. So that lightens it up, but also dramatically shortens service life. OMC’s when maintained just go, and go, and go by simple principle; iron trumps aluminum in terms of repeated use durability, tolerance to temperature spikes, etc.

Production runs also contribute; most OMC models were run for at least a decade. In many instances, for 20-30 years of production. And in the 60’s, from what I’ve read, they were producing 200,000 motors a year! Multiply that by 10 years and you have 2,000.000 motors floating around. That is a lot of parts motors left over even 50 years later.

Can’t speak to mercury, and nothing against them. After all, they are still in business, yet OMC has been gone for nearly 20 years at this point.

[billw]

The other thing about Mercury parts is that up until the eighties, they were constantly "improving" their lineup. Sometimes it was an actual improvement. Other times, it was a change that didn’t amount to a hill of beans, in my opinion. So, up until the eighties, there was not a lot of predictable changeability between motors and parts. Like an early 1967 20 hp prop shaft may or may not, be the same as a 1966 or even a late 1967. So finding the right part for a particular engine, and stocking the right parts for all the different variations was, and still is, a nightmare. In the late seventies and eighties, Mercury settled in on designs that worked and had a lot more commonality of parts. By then, they also had stainless steel shafts. So all they had to do was wait for OMC to implode, to basically trip over its own feet, which it did. Plus, I totally agree about the fact that there were just SO many more OMCs out there….

Long live American manufacturing!

[Author]

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