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Now that I'm a OPTI owner I'v been reading up on the dreaded compressor failure. Have seen one myself prior to purchasing mine.

http://www.thehulltruth.com/boating-for ... urs-2.html

http://www.thehulltruth.com/boating-for ... ner-3.html
- See last post

Found a thread on the Hull Truth may be worth reading if you own one. The best paragraph I found was:

"If you own an Opti, take off your cowl now and then and grab the big pulley that drives the compressor. If you can wiggle/wobble that pulley at all, your compressor is failing. Start the engine with the pulley exposed and if there is any wobble at all, your compressor is failing. At that point you can repair the bearing for about $200 in parts and its very easy. If the compressor goes, it could cost you A LOT MORE. My last one completely blew apart and took out 3 air injectors. The total PARTS bill on that repair was $1700. This is an easy thing to check....maybe 5 minutes tops."

Again .... only believe so much that you read ... but some items are noy very intrusive to try .. even if its only speculative.




I'll be looking mine over this spring but thought others might benifit form the read.

Dave

Unfortunatly, although there are still products assembled in North America, most come from Mexico/ China , and there are some quality issues. some of the early compressore one the 02 and 03 were the worst from what I have read. Cleaning the small coolant filter regurarly is supposed to be very important as well. Even with their problems, with maintaince they seem to last, there was a water ingestion issue with water coming in the rear air intake, as well.

Steve

thats interesting Dave, iv taken a couple scrap merc compressor apart to see what was going on inside, they didn't appear to be serviceable, the crank cases and cylinders were really badly beaten. i suppose if you were too catch it soon enough you would save the housing. the one i took apart looked like it was about too throw a rod with half a piston smashing around inside.

You may want to touch base with Stewart at Maximum Marine.
I know he has a few goodies to make these better.

Also keep an eye on the mounting bolts that actually hold the compressor to the block...they like to fall off from time to time.

That pulley wiggle is a good idea...I've seen them take out powerheads...