Towards the end of last season my Yamaha 50hp OB Tilt mechanism started playing up and in the end refused to work at all, fortunately in the engine up position.
The yard engineers were asked to have a look at the problem when the boat was lifted out for winter storage, they checked the Tilt Motor and found it was knackered! They also got a price off Yamaha for a replacement and it was over £600.00 - Argh!!!
I decided that I would try to source a cheaper motor myself on the web and as I found one priced at just over $300 plus shipping, I decided to go with it.
The US web site http://www.boats.net is a great site not only for Yamaha parts but most other major OB suppliers. The site also has a great parts finder, which became very useful later!
The Trim Motor part number that I got from the yard engineers was ordered and shipped within three days by boats.net.
Having paid import duty to Parcelforce I got the motor over to the yard for the engineers to fit.
Unfortunately the motor was the wrong one (shaft too long) so the engineers re-checked and found they had specified a 2002 model part not a 1998 part. They having volunteered to agree to pay the cost of ordering the correct part for re-shipment, I received the part after some shipment delay in the New Year.
Before ordering the "new" part number I checked on the boat.net parts finder to ensure it was the correct part and I would recommend if anyone needs OB parts to try it, if only to get the part numbe to order in the UK.
Anyway by the time I received the motor I had brought the boat back to its winter storage location. So I then had to fit it myself, which although it would not have been too difficult normally, without decent tools it was certainly challenging for me!
Whilst looking for the part on other US based OB parts sites, I also found after market re-built parts for less cost then the Yamaha parts but decided to go with original part.
I could not find any UK based parts suppliers with online facilities.
Hope this small story helps anyone who needs a source of "cheaper" OB parts, though with the recent currency changes the US sourced parts are not as cheap as they used to be but the saving can be significant on bigger parts, even with the shipping and import costs.
Cheers
Morris