I Just bought a 2003 Sea Ray 176 SRX

DaytonaJohn

DaytonaJohn

Member
May 17, 2019
33
Boat Info
Boatless
Engines
3.0L Mercruiser Alpha One
New guy with many questions here ! It took awhile, but I found a fresh water Sea Ray that was a Pennsylvania boat here in Florida. I wanted a 176 or 175 because of the size of the boat for ease of towing, launching and retrieving on the trailer, and storage. It has the 3.0L inline 4 cylinder and Alpha ONE outdrive. It will take some time, but eventually I will have parts and service manuals for the engine and lower unit and the Sea Ray owner's manual and related publications. I'm not sure where I will find all that yet. The boat came with no paperwork. It was a trade-in so the dealer had no history.
IT is obvious the previous owner hit something because of some scrapes on the lower unit. More about that later...… My first question is this....does anybody know for sure what the stock propeller was when the boats left the factory ?

I found something online that says 48-944868 Black Max propeller which is 14.25 diameter x 21 inch pitch propeller. Can anyone verify this ? Also the top speed is 44 at 4900 RPM. TRUE ???

The dealer said they put a used propeller on it (to replace the damaged one ?) and it matches "what came off of it ". I believe it is the wrong propeller...a 15 inch pitch which pushed my test drive to a max of 32MPH at 4200 rpm. I understand the correlation between the pitch and engine rpm. I may have a carburetor adjustment issue to address, that's OK, but lowering the pitch to 15 inch should RAISE the engine RPM.

I'm happy with the overall condition of my purchase ! It starts easily and everything works. The trailer was maintained and was perfect. I believe the boat was kept inside it's whole life - clean carpet, shiny gelcoat, extra nice upholstery.

thanks in advance for any answers.... I will follow up with opinions about Sea Ray from a former Mercury employee who retired after 42 years and was asked to come back and take over Mercruiser quality control, and from a 50 hull designer, manufacturing consultant, and past Mercury salt water test facility manager. The short version is I did my homework and they said it was OK to buy a 16 year old Sea Ray...
 
Welcome aboard and welcome to the Sea Ray family! Buying an older Sea Ray (assuming it was cared for) is fine. We recently bought a 22 year old model and have had no real issues to speak of! Plenty of folks here to help you out on yours, for sure!
 
15" is way too small for sure. However, while that 32MPH is in the ballpark for a 15", the 4200RPM is not. With a 15" prop you should be hundreds and hundreds of RPM's OVER your max. Not way under it. Either you have misread the prop or you are not trimming the drive properly. Get back to us on that - hard to offer advice with misinformation... meaning, the advice we would give is not going to be of much help.

21" sounds about right for stock.
 
I've never had an inboard -outboard before. For some reason this boat does not have the indicator guage showing the angle of the outdrive !!! Can you believe that ? It must have been an option. I trimmed the outdrive trying to find the sweet spot.

I believe the gear ratio is 2:1. I have to investigate that further. And yes the RPMs should be a LOT higher with that 15. that's why I think the carb or something else might need adjusting.

I know a dealer where I buy outboard parts and they have a 175 on the lot. I will see what is on that boat. It was for sale but I didn't buy it.
 
Did you do a compression test at your survey? If so what were the numbers?
 
There would have been a trim gauge there as standard equipment. A previous owner must have gotten rid of it. Why? One sometimes never knows why previous owners do what they do.

But, regardless, you really don't need the gauge. Continue to trim up, under WOT, until the speed no longer increases and/or the prop starts to ventilate. Your MAX RPM and Speed are numbers you get immediately before that happens. This needs to be done with one person and light load.

What's the HIN?
 
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I did not do a compression test. the engine has 92 hours. The HIN is SERR3122A303. The air cleaner thing has some info and the Max rpm is 4400-4600
 
Thanks Woody. The propeller that is on the boat I just bought is 781160P1 15P. After looking in my Mercury Historical Propeller Book I have, I learned that the propeller the dealer installed was the wrong diameter 15 7/8 inches instead of 14 1/4. This very definitely would knock off engine RPMs. The sweet spot is maximum pitch at the engine rpm of 4400-4600 with the lower unit trimmed correctly. I could reduce the pitch for easier plane-ing and pulling tubes or skier which I have no plans on doing...just easy riding. I believe my 3 1/2 year education in marine engineering help me figure this out. Propeller theory was my favorite elective.
The boat salesman kept saying he's not a mechanic. I believe he has risen to his level of incompetence already.
 
FYI, look at that flame arrestor again... the RPM range for your engine is 4400 to 4800. Ideally, you want to be in the upper part of the range with a light load - even a little higher with a light load is fine.
 
Lazy Daze, thanks for adding that. I was advised by a guy in my antique outboard motor club to remove the flame arrestor and make sure that the butterfly is fully open when the throttle handle is in the wide open position....doing this with the engine off . I ws also advised that with little gas and one person I could tweak the LU and get it up to 5000 without harm to make sure I was getting the best out of it otherwise my linkages could be in need of adjustment.

I think I will shop for a stainless 14.25 x 21 and go from there.

My Mercury propeller book is historical and doesn't have ALPHA One in it. Of interest is the 2 blade bronze 34 inch for an inline 6 Mercury outboard that probably NO ONE ever attempted to try !
 
Sure - I don't see anything wrong with going to 5,000 on the engine for testing purposes. Skip the SS prop - the 4cyl really doesn't have enough torque to spin it fast enough to take advantage of it's stiffness. I tested that on my 180BR. It's similar to your boat, although overall planing time is a tad bit faster in the 180 - meaning, the SS would have (in theory) more of a noticeable impact than it would on the 176... meaning, it's even more important to stick with an aluminum prop on the 176.

No... I have never 'tested' that bronze prop! :)
 
Once I had a fellow boater suggest I switch to a SS prop, so I did. That was in 1976 and I have not run an aluminum prop since.

Prior to that every few years the old aluminums would need tweaking due to dents from flotsum and shallow water running. My SS has been non-repaired.

Our family boat for the past 35 years has run a Michigan Wheel SS on a 3.0 Liter Mercruiser pre-alpha. It was excellent, but not "perfect" so I had it repitched to half way between the 19 and 21 pitch props that were the only ones available.

Sweeeeet.

My speed and fuel efficiency figures have been awesome. I'll never run aluminum again.

YMMV and just my opinion.
 
Where can I get a wiring diagram for my 2003 3.0 Liter Sea Ray SRX ? I have some disconnected wires below deck that are for the tilt angle indicator of my Angle Indicator. thanks John
 
Thanks so much Woody. The boat has no paperwork or manuals. the Owner's manual part number is different than the link you sent which is the correct one. Now I'm trying to find the Parts Manual.

I contacted the Mercury web site to order the factory engine and Sterndrive service manuals and parts manuals. These cost about $200. With shop labor at $95/hour locally, I figure one oil change and stern drive lube change will pay for them.

Meanwhile the serial numbers for the engine and stern drive on the stickers located on the flame arrester are unreadable. Mercury wanted the engine serial number that I fount on the side of the block. I noticed that the oil filter is shiny black like new. I am starting to believe that I have a NEW engine. the engine mounting bolts show signs of wrenches or sockets being used on them yet the valve cover bolts are like new, untouched by wrenches and the boat is 16 years old ? Also there is NO oil drain hose attached to the oil pan. For some reason the trim sender and indicator wire coming in the boat from the sterndrive are disconnected and the gauge is missing from the dashboard. the hole for the trim guage is filled with a plug. I want to get that missing guage so I need a parts list.

Sea Ray had a factory in my town of Flagler Beach FL which closed last year. They made only the largest models or Sea Ray. I'm sure I can find a retired or former employee that an expert on the wiring. I don't know of a Sea Ray dealer in my area that sells new ones. Also when I find it, I will post a picture of a SeaLand ship I was an engineer on taking a lot of the larger Sea Ray boats to Europe on deck. They were loaded in Jacksonville and about 10 days later were discharged in Rotterdam then Germany then England. They were longer than standard 40 foot containers, probably 48 footers ?
 
Flounder Pounder (fpmarine.com) might be a good source for the OEM trim guage. They buy up and resell discontinued parts from a number of boat manufactures. My guess is the trim limit switch and sender started giving problems and they did not know what to do so they just disconnected it. Another nice plug and play option is the transom trim switch - one of the best things I ever added to my boat.

IMG_0606.JPG
 
BillK, Thanks ! I found the 176 SRX parts list online and can go from there looking for the dash board guage. It doesn't have to match the others but it would be nice.

I will miss not having that oil drain hose. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, originally the boat drain plug outside on the back of the boat was removed to change the engine oil. Obviously the boat had to be out of the water on the trailer or lift. After removing the drain plug, a small wire was attached to it and you pull on it to get a rubber hose to come out the drain hole ! Genious ! You put the hose in a bucket and remove the end of it to drain the engine in a bucket on the ground. No mess inside the boat except removing the oil filter and that is handled by putting a bunch of rags and newspaper under the engine to catch drips. For me to install that missing hose I would have to pull the engine out to do it right and tighten everything with confidence.

I bought a new water pump impeller to install and will then put new gear oil in the stern drive.
 
I contacted Sea Ray and they gave me the engine and stern drive numbers of the machinery when the boat was built. The engine certainly looks like it is brand new and there are 92 hours on the engine hour meter. The engine is missing the oil drain hose on the oil pan. Also the valve cover bolt paint is undisturbed, something unlikely for a boat that is 16 years old. the oil filter looks new and the oil was as clear as new oil. the exhaust boot appears new. Clues like these make me believe the engine is new. I found a boat dealership sticker and contacted them; unfortunately they were unable to give me any info (or wouldn't).
Mercury told me that with the numbers Sea Ray gave me from the build sheet that my 3.0L never had any warranty work nor was there ever a recall. The motor mount bolts show signs of sockets on them, and my L/U tilt indicator wiring is disconnected. These are mysteries that I will likely never know the explainations for.
I ordered the parts and service manuals from Mercury that should have the engine wiring diagrams with color codes. I also just ordered a new propeller from Mercury.....no Chinese aftermarket propeller for me !

Finally, I mailed a letter to the name of the previous owner on the title. Maybe he will reply with some history of the boat. We'll see....
 
Do the serial numbers that Sea Ray gave you match the numbers physically on the boat? What are your serial numbers?
 
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