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Bosun's Marine Parts & SERVICE

Service FAQ's

Frequently Asked Questions about our Parts and Service.

The Bow Thruster gets power from its own battery located near the thruster unit itself, what most people don’t know is, the Bow Thruster battery only receives a charge when the boats battery charging system is being used so the boat needs to be plugged into smore power or if the boat is equipped, the generator can be run with the main breakers switched to generator.

When we commission your boats water system, we flush the system with fresh water then add Starbrite Aqua water treatment. When we final fill the tank this inhibits things from growing in the water as it sits in your boats tank. When adding water of refilling your water tank I recommend adding a treatment as noted above or in a pinch add non scented plain bleach to your tank at about 1/8 cup to 100 gallons.

Ring-Free is a carbon debonder, it removes the carbon from valves, piston top. If you are turning fuel over monthly or more and running the boat hard you shouldn’t have to use Ring-Free. If you only fuel up every other month or so and/or do a lot of trolling, I would recommend regular use of Ring-Free at the maintenance level of 1oz per 10 gallons.

Whether you have a Mercruiser or Volvo Penta sterndrive, the maintenance recommendation is once a year for pulling the drive. Sterndrives have come a long way in the past 15-20 years. The shaft that connects the drive to the motor, called a V-Joint Shaft use to have grease fittings. And the guide bearing the V-Joint Shaft rides in also had a grease fitting that required annual maintenance. All the new stuff is sealed so there’s no greasing required. So, to put Sterndrive maintenance into perspective, the gear lube should be changed and inspected annually. During that time we inspect all the rubber and wear components like anodes for damage. Pulling the drive, I believe can be done every other year. What is done when the drive is removed is internal inspection of the rubber components. But most importantly checking the motor to drive alignment and greasing the splines at the motor end of the V-Joint Shaft. We don’t see as many alignment problem as we did 15-20 years ago. But you don’t know if you don’t check.