boat parts

[George Selby]

At 11:47 AM 12/24/03, you wrote:
>Need a starter for your marine Chevy 350? $125 for a rebuilt, need one for 
>your car 350? $30 rebuilt.


With respect to marine alternators, starters, and distributors, although 
physically similar, they are not the same as their automotive counterparts, 
they have additional parts to assure that no sparks external to the part in 
question will be produced or emitted, thereby keeping boats from exploding 
(fumes accumulate in the bottom of the boat, spark, boom!)

So due to the law of demand, there are a lot more Chevy starters needed in 
the world than boat starters, so due to the laws of supply the Chevy small 
block rebuild facility is probably an automated factory, rebuilding 
thousands of starters per week, or at least an assembly line of workers 
each specializing in one aspect of starter repair.  The boat starter 
'factory' might be a dude rebuilding entire starters next to 5 other dudes 
doing the same thing, they knock out maybe a hundred a week.  So I can 
understand why marine electrical parts cost significantly more.

George Selby
gselby4x4 at earthlink.net