Official 270 SLX Thread (There HAS to be enough of us!)

RichardS

New Member
Nov 15, 2015
173
South Jersey
Boat Info
2009 Sea Ray 270 SLX
Engines
Merc 496 375HP, Bravo III
To the hardworking Mods and others who officiate this great forum:

I hope I am not overstepping, but my thought in starting this thread is that when the original subject threads were laid out for the forum, the 270 SLX Model wasn't all that popular yet and the threads relative to the 270 could be easily thrown into the "Select EX" thread.

But THAT thread is now many, MANY pages long and when searching the forum for a subject specific to the 270 SLX, often that thread will come up as a result. Then there are a hundred or so pages to search through looking for an answer that may well be in another thread elsewhere on the forum anyway!


So I am hoping you guys in charge will find it appropriate to leave this thread in place for those of us here who have a 270 SLX and want to jump right to our own thread.

AND........I am hoping the other 270 SLX owners will find this thread and USE it to place questions and answers and thoughts and ideas about our boat, so we can all share what our experience has been on this great Sea Ray!

I'll kick it off........

So far I LOVE the boat, but have some frustrations, starting with an antique and now defunct company chartplotter at the helm, the Northstar 550. I'd love to change it over to Garmin but I don't want to lose the info I can display from the Smartgauges on the screen. And while the Smartgauges are ALSO "obsolete" in their own way, I certainly don't want to update the whole package. If I could afford a new boat I would have bought one!!

In other news, I still haven't been able to figure out what caused the "System Fault" critical (the boat's choice of words, not mine) fault that is reading as "Engine Message Data Fault" whatever THAT is.

And, now the horn that was working at delivery has stopped working. Probably a fuse but I can't find my fuse block! Looked all over the place and found LOTS of other fuses in the above the battery bank, but no "horn" fuse, so hopefully someone can share where the heck THAT is!

Yesterday, our last day at the boat before having to head home to reality, it rained all day, HARD, and I couldn't do a thing to investigate anything on the boat, let alone take her out to look for any remaining issues as a result of that fault message.

And speaking of messages displayed on the chartplotter, it seems some date does get sent to the display, and some doesn't, so some gauges displayed do not work, and I am wondering what I have to do to get them ALL to work. Is it an additional piece of hardware, or a software configuration I need to do on the Smart Tow set-up?

Anyway, as you can see I am finding new questions and things to discuss every day, and may in fact be able to contribute along the way........

Actually, I DO have a contribution!

In another area of the forum I asked about the thread size of the transom shower handle.

No one knew and Sea Ray and Marine Max wouldn't tell me, like it was some big secret!

I went to Home Depot, bought a standard kitchen faucet sprayer, and LOOKEE HERE! It FITS!

It threaded right on as easily as if you were replacing the one at your kitchen sink, and didn't leak at all around the threads, so it is indeed a perfect fit.

Problem solved?

NOPE.

I bought a sprayer with a button that looked like an "On/Off button but it was in fact a "Full Flow/Spray button, meaning it can't actually be shut OFF. So I have to return it and find something that actually has an OFF switch.

So it's a "Good News, Bad News" situation here. The good news is obviously we aren't locked into the $97 spray handle from Sea Ray. The bad news is I haven't found a working replacement yet, but how hard can it be? If you guys find one, please share!

OK, I could add more here, (like the issues I am having getting my iPod to work, and whose brilliant idea was it to make us have to take apart the back of the head door to install it, anyway??), but I'll leave that to another post!
 
Fuses are in a trap door inside the storage area in front of the driver seat. A door flips down to reveal them. It is effectively behind the gauges.
 
Fuses are in a trap door inside the storage area in front of the driver seat. A door flips down to reveal them. It is effectively behind the gauges.

Thanks for the intel! Incredibly I didn't see that info anywhere in the owner's manual! (Doesn't mean it isn't there, I miss a lot!)

I always wonder why a particular fuse would blow......in this case....the horn. Was working at delivery. Then, just testing everything at the dock, it isn't. I guess I have to look at the wiring diagram to see what else is connected to that fuse. It seems unlikely it's all on it's own, and I'd like to determine why the fuse went. Sometimes it's an obvious reason, here, doesn't seem to be.

In your experience with your boat have you had any recurring fuse issues?

For that matter, are there ANY recurring issues on our boat that I should be aware of, or watchful of? Or preventable?

Every boat has it's own quirks, at least in my experience. But I wonder if there is any commonality in this model I should be on the lookout for, or do something about in advance of failure?

Thanks in advance Paul, and to any of the other guys out there who join in on the 270 SLX thread. Again, don't mean to overstep in any way.....but it seems like there are a few of us here on the forum, so hopefully a consolidation into one thread with all issues relative to the 270 SLX will make the exchange of ideas and information a little easier for us all.
 
No recurring issues, but there are some nuances. The owners manual and parts manual show the fuses and wiring in great detail - might want to print out those pages.
The 496 is known to eat plugs and wires, so be prepared to watch for that.
It is also a large, hot motor. Keeping the raw water pump and water inlet passages in good shape is critical. My boat, and one other that I know of, had the raw water inlet tube/fitting go bad and limit water intake causing overheating.
Also, it is not a self bailing boat, so keeping the bilge pumps operational is important.
 
Paul, (I'm assuming!), I really appreciate the continued advice!

I actually am a little paranoid about bilge pump operation, since an event on a boat I owned years ago almost cost me an engine. Well, I guess it could have sunk my battleship left unattended long enough.

We had a rainy week while back home at our year-round residence, which is about 35-40 minutes drive from the boat. LOTS of rain, every day.

Like a blessing from Heaven, with the weekend came sunny, warm, perfect boating weather!

Before I go on with my story, some background my "start-up sequence". Everyone has one....this is mine, has been for years.

Rather than starting the blowers and relying on them to clear any fumes from the bilge, I open the engine hatch and check my fluids, belts, etc, to ensure I don't start off with a small issue that could have been prevented from becoming a large issue. Years of riding Harley's (45 years) taught me the wisdom of a "pre-ride safety check".

One day, as I boarded, my phone rang. It was my daughter.

I love my daughter but like many daughters, she drives her dad a little nuts. (Maybe a LOT on some days!)

She started with some conversation I no longer remember, but at the time it was enough to distract me from my usual routine and I started the engine with no preliminaries.

As soon as I heard the engine humming along, I realized my mistake but thought "Well, the boat didn't blow up, and I know the fluids are ok anyway, having checked them yesterday, so I am just going out."

BIG mistake.

We're about 7-10 minutes at no-wake speed from the causeway that leads to the bay. When I get to that run, I bring the boat on-plane to ensure everything is "A-OK" before getting to the bay.

Went WOT and the engine roared for a couple seconds, then the boat bogged down to a crawl. Tried it again, same thing. But at idle it seemed fine.

I'm thinking, "Fuel filter?" and told my wife, "we gotta go home", and turned around and idled perfectly fine back to our dock.

When I got there, I opened the hatch and what do you think I discovered? (drum roll please.....)

Water in the bilge about, no lie, 8 inches deep, covering all KINDS of "stuff". The belts were literally running through the water, that deep, so NO idea how the boat started. I know, I know, doesn't seem possible, but I can't make this stuff up.

Shut it off, of course, and reached into the water, feeling around for the bilge pump, (knew where to feel) and came up with a wire, disconnected from the pump. Corrosion had done it's dirty work.

Lifted the float switch by hand and did something to keep it that way and after what seemed like an eternity the water was all pumped out.

I somehow, blessedly, dodged more than one bullet that day. Although it looked like there was some moisture in the oil, it appeared it had only gotten some in through whatever splashed around the dipstick, and after flushing the engine's oil, twice, it ran as perfectly as ever and the only aftermath was replacing the starter soon afterwards. I feel like I was very fortunate that day!

What had happened was during our rainy week, on my un-covered boat, water had collected in the bilge and the continuous running of the pump, before it could even run the battery down, vibrated off that corroded connecting wire, and that was the end of the pump's ability to get the water out of the bilge.

So now, I unfailingly do the same thing with all my boats, opening the hatch to check things out, including the bilge pump, no matter WHO calls me while I am boarding the boat!

It seems like there ought to be more than one bilge pump on a boat like ours. Too much chance of a catastrophic event with only one to rely upon.

I did spend a good part of the day Saturday, while waiting for the tide to rise, crawling around (as much as I could) in the bilge, cleaning and wiping and vacuuming everything possible in there, so there'd be nothing to clog the pump the next time it's called into service. That's just too easy a thing to happen and an equally easy thing to prevent, IMHO.

The raw water pump was recently replaced on the motor, but I will be sure to keep an eye on the heat issues as you recommend. I certainly don't want to replace this engine any time soon. Or ever.

Thanks again for the much needed and very much appreciated input!!
 
There actually is a second pump located at the rear of the ski locker. there is a round access port on the rear wall in there, and a pump hidden behind it. It is below the potable water pump, in front of the gas tank, and behind the divider wall in the rear of the locker. Go searching..... It is there because as I said, not self bailing. All the water that comes in the cup holders, the bow storage compartments, the bathroom floor drain, the front half of the boat floor, etc all end up in there. The locker floor is a false floor with water space under it.
 
I'm going to impart some 300 SLX knowledge in the 270 SLX thread on the topic... :)

There are pumps hidden all over my boat. I have two in the engine compartment bilge (regular and high water back-up), a mid-ship pump at the back of the ski locker covered by a panel (sounds similar to the above), and another pump at the front of the ski locker behind a panel that houses the water tank (this pump shoots out the water from the head sink and drain).

I'm okay with having 4 pumps on this relatively small boat, but I do wish there were more self-bailing. For example, when washing the deck/floor, that water can go directly out.
 
OP, thanks for creating this thread.
I purchased my 2007 270 SLX last year. Right off the bat I was chasing electrical gremlins. Solved one myself - blown engine hatch fuse. Still hunting down why the chart plotter isn't getting power (had power when I took delivery). The only other electrical problem was due to a loose engine ground which tripped the 70 amp (?) breaker. This is when the chart plotter stopped working. Hopefully I will find the chart plotter fuse next time I'm on the boat.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
 
OP, thanks for creating this thread.
I purchased my 2007 270 SLX last year. Right off the bat I was chasing electrical gremlins. Solved one myself - blown engine hatch fuse. Still hunting down why the chart plotter isn't getting power (had power when I took delivery). The only other electrical problem was due to a loose engine ground which tripped the 70 amp (?) breaker. This is when the chart plotter stopped working. Hopefully I will find the chart plotter fuse next time I'm on the boat.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

You're very welcome!!


Just curious....which chartplotter came with your boat when you bought it? And have you resolved your power issue yet? I'm also curious as to, if you have the Navman or Northstar, if you've had any issues with alarms triggering Guardian Mode.....love to hear from you, or any of the other 270 SLX guys, regarding this issue. Especially if you've had NO issues with Guardian Mode, what your setting are....which alarms you have "on" and which "off".

On another note, regarding fuses......my horn worked during my survey, now it doesn't.....anybody know where that fuse is??
 
Trim tabs indicator??

OK, so here's my question for the day......

I know everything you read says after a while knowing what position each trim tab is in becomes instinctive and second nature, but that hasn't happened for me on ANY boat I have owned that had trim tabs. Guess I don't have good instincts!

But what I DID have before were trim tab indicators, and that took the guesswork out of the whole subject.

My question is.....since there are trim tab controls that incorporate position indicators into them, how hard would it be to install a set and what does it take to make them functional? (Not just making them retract and drop, obviously, getting the signal, however that's done, to the little LED lights on the indicators to tell where the tabs are.)

Is it by any chance a "plug and play" scenario, or it is a complicated deal involving pulling the boat?

I'd love to have them NOW instead of next season, but I am not pulling this boat (unless I have an emergency) until Winter Layup!
 
Re: Trim tabs indicator??

My understanding is it's not terribly difficult, but it does require pulling the boat because new rams are needed (that are capable of measuring vs. regular ones that's don't).

There are threads around here where folks have retrofitted tabs with indicators.
 
Re: Trim tabs indicator??

My understanding is it's not terribly difficult, but it does require pulling the boat because new rams are needed (that are capable of measuring vs. regular ones that's don't).

There are threads around here where folks have retrofitted tabs with indicators.

That makes sense. Guess that's a project for NEXT season then! I'm still working on whatever the heck is triggering Guardian Mode on my boat!
 
Re: Trim tabs indicator??

That makes sense. Guess that's a project for NEXT season then! I'm still working on whatever the heck is triggering Guardian Mode on my boat!

I have not had an issue with guardian on this boat. Worst thing that happened was the 50 amp main breaker tripped when I hit a massive wake going too fast a few years ago. Never been repeated.

Our 240 was a different story. The power line to the ignition switch was installed with a zip tie instead of a machine screw. One day we were running it with a tube out when the engine just quit. After I figured it out it was an easy fix. BUT we had one electrial problem after another going forward. Fortunately I had an extended warranty and the dealer got to chase those around. The final problem was that guardian kept engaging with no reason. Some days it was fine and some days it would trigger 5 or 6 times. Then came the day it would't turn off. Dealer had me do a system reset. Didn't work. Tested then ECM and found out it was fried. $1,800 fix, thank God I bought the Mercury extended warranty. Traded the boat the following spring.
 
I have an upgraded (at the time) Garmin unit on my 270. No guardian issues.

I very, very rarely use my trim tabs. The only time I use them is when there is a strong wind that is getting caught in the sports arch and I need to correct for it.
 
Well, here's an update on my "System Fault" error messages and how the Guardian Mode triggers as a result.

As I mentioned before, during the last few days while the weather was so bad I couldn't go out anyway, I went through the Northstar chartplotter and disabled the alarms that had been triggering that made no sense, and left any that did enabled.

Today, we had some beautiful weather, finally, so I was able to take the boat out. No problem on the way to the bay, about 7-10 minutes at idle speed.
Got to the bay ok.

But after about 4 or 5 minutes at WOT, at about 45 mph, the alarm sounded.

Unfortunately, Guardian Mode was triggered again. The bright side, (which isn't easy to see when the forth ride on this boat ended like the first three, in Guardian Mode), is that with those alarms in the chartplotter disabled, I didn't get the same "System Fault-Engine Message Data Fault", with no real indication of why I was in Guardian Mode. This time the Smart Tow gauge displayed the reason I was in Guardian Mode......I was overheating!!

The engine temp was 200 degrees when I went into Guardian Mode, and I had my thermal gun with me, so I took some temps, and the Port manifold was at 265 degrees while the Starboard manifold was at 185. Obviously I've got something going on affecting the port side, no idea what.

I stopped the engine, waited a few minutes, the engine cooled back down more quickly than I would have thought, and I headed home, rather slowly.

The engine temp continued to drop as I made my way back, and by the time I was in my own lagoon I was at 165 degrees and no sign of any problem, although I'm sure if I went WOT that it would overheat again.

So, what is the issue? As simple as the impeller? The water pump? An issue specific to the port manifold overheating the engine?

I called the dealer, and expect a return call tomorrow.

I am not going to try to fix this myself. They are going to have to come get the boat and figure it out. I just hope it doesn't take long. Boating season is NOW!

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this.
 
Upgrade/Update Smartcraft gauges?

I believe what I have in my 2009 is "second generation" Smart Tow gauge package. Deduction made from reading Mercury's illustration and descriptions of each gauge from over the years.

So, a couple questions.....

A. Is it possible/desirable, to upgrade/update the smartcraft gauge to a newer generation? If so, how hard is it, and what are the benefits?

B. My understanding is the Smartcraft system is/was a proprietary system and not NMEA2000 "ready". If that's so, does it make more sense to change out the package to something altogether different? If so, to what? And the benefits?

Since I have been plagued (as have others) by alarms, and system error messages, that sometimes do and often don't make sense, I'm looking for a way out of that annoying and stressful situation. Just wondering what my options are, but not looking to foolishly throw money at a problem if it won't really demonstrate a truly measurable benefit.
 
I am a 2 year owner of a 2005 270 SLX and appreciate the forum. We love the boat and have some similar challenges for feedback.
* With my canvas package, I continuously get water through the area at the bow walk thru door where the cockpit cover and tonneau cover meet. Same issue, the water sits in the ski locker
* I just removed the winter shrink wrap and the boat is still in a cradle. So, water that enters now even with the covers will sit in the bilge - even with the plug out. Is this right??? Anything that can be done or bypassed to allow drainage
* The original Nav Man plotter is garbage - any suggestions on replacement
* Initially, my fridge worked off shore power with my batteries in the OFF position - great for keeping things cold when at dock. Last year, this was not the case and I think it was because of the way the batteries were installed. Any advice? No wit works strictly off battery power. Does anyone keep the fridge on when away for the week?
 
Hey everybody! My wife and I bought our first boat last September and are super excited to be a part of the family. We only have about 4 hours on it bc we took delivery so late in the year, so feels like we're just getting it this year. Hope to learn from everybody here as well as provide some things I learn over time.

As for something cottage run brought up, you're correct the navman stinks nowadays. Not sure if your console dimensions same as mine, I'd assume they are, but I swapped it out with a raymarine a68. It fits about as perfectly as you'll find (I think it's .25" smaller than current cutout). I then hooked it up to a ray70 vhf which enables me to have AIS on the mfd in addition to the chirp and downvision already built in. Nice set up and much better than navman.

Now for my question of the day, I need to change the registration decals on the boat. What suggestions do people have as to the easiest way to remove everything? Thanks everybody!
 
OneDown, Congrats on getting an awesome boat! We just got our '09 270 SLX about a month ago and have had an issue with alarms now being addressed, (ultimately it is an overheating issue but we had problems identifying it until we took the Navman out of the loop and let Smartcraft tell us what it was.), so now of course I want to upgrade the chartplotter. We have the Northstar 500 which is identical to your old Navman.

Did you interface the Smartcraft system into your Raymarine a68? What did you have to add to make that happen, as I assume the old gateway to the Navman wasn't compatible.

And if you could post some pics of your install it would be much appreciated.

I've always been a Garmin man myself, but if Raymarine is the better choice I will certainly switch allegiances. In fact, I recently got a great deal on a Raymarine c95, too good to pass up, but there's no way it will fit where the old chartplotter is, so I have to decide if I want to mount it somewhere else, and frankly, I don't know where to put it. If any of you guys have some suggestions to that end it would be much appreciated. Meanwhile, I've got it safely in the box awaiting my willingness to drill holes in my boat.

I'm also thinking of installing sonar so I can get a view of what's under the boat. When I had a much larger boat I found it very helpful in shallow waters to know what I was dealing with down below. Thinking of doing that with this boat but I can't decide that until I decide what the heart of the system will be. Like I said, I always liked Garmin but this deal on the c95 was great so I bought it kind of impulsively. Now the decision is, do I make use of it or pass it along to someone who will. Have to get some suggestions as to where to mount it before I can decide that!

Cottage Run: I get water into the boat at the same place you do when the covers are on. Don't really know what can be done to eliminate that. There is a place to snap the covers together but there will still be that gap there. I have raised the cover poles as high as they can go to get that "peak" as steep as possible for water run-off when it rains. That has helped a little. I made the mistake of leaving the pole up front too low for the first rain storm and we had a huge pool of water over the bow. Had I not been there to sweep it all off with a broom and raise the pole I'm sure the snaps would have given out and all that water would have wound up in the bilge.
 
Last edited:
Thanks Richard! I did not integrate the smart craft gauges with the mfd for two reasons: I'm working remotely from where my boat is and don't know it well enough yet to mock up all the wiring and have it figured out before I get there, and secondly, I grew up on the waters we are boating on and don't plan on having the mfd on all the time. So by leaving gauges separate, I can still see water temp and depth when traveling to areas I know. When I want to go exploring new areas, nav at night, or go looking for shipwrecks to dive, I'll use the mfd and with the downvision built in, I'll get quite the picture of what's on bottom. The vhf since also a raymarine product is simply sea talked into the mfd so I can now receive AIS. While the a68 isn't the biggest display, like yourself, I HATE drilling holes in the boat and couldn't bring myself to doing that, aside from the fact that there really isn't a good spot at the helm in my opinion. While I love this boat, sea ray did not make it easy for upgrades at the helm, heck, there's hardly a good spot for the vhf and antenna especially since I don't have the sport bar.

As for pics, I don't have any currently but when I'm up there in about a month and everything is finished I certainly will post some to give you an idea of what it looks like!
 

Forum statistics

Threads
112,944
Messages
1,422,724
Members
60,927
Latest member
Jaguar65
Back
Top