on the hunt for a pump

Well I'm more of a omc man most of my engines in the past have been omc and I've had good luck with them. But I'm not completely biased I'm wanting to switch my boat to jet which led me to buying a mercury mariner. Currently I run a 40hp 3cyl carbed nissan tiller short shaft with a prop it came with the boat and has been good and a atlas micro jacker jack plate it works. But a jet would be best for most of my use fishing/hunting shallow rivers. The 40 with the prop is about perfect for power on my hull not crazy fast or powerful but enough to go well and plane out fine with a 2-3 guys and fishing or hunting gear. I figured if I switched the 40hp to a jet foot it would probably be under powered and struggle to plane. So I found a 94 mariner 60hp tiller short shaft for a ok price not far away had to drive for it but larger tiller outboards are somewhat hard to find especially short shaft which is nice so I don't have to modify my transom. Figure the 60 with a jet will probably be close to my 40 with a prop as far as performance.

My problem now is I figured that mariner wouldn't be to hard to find a pump for since the 60hp mercury/mariner power head was common. But I'm not having any luck finding a outboard jet lower for it despite it being a pretty common and large produced jet pump. I'm trying to avoid huge price tag of a new outboard jet. I'm looking for ag model outboard jet, so if there is anyone with one, or you know of one, or any place that might have one I would greatly appreciate it. Long time reader of this forum first time poster I've appreciated all the info I have gotten from this forum so far so I'm really hoping someone might be able to help.

Give Fred at Current River Marine in Doniphan a call.

I called there not to long ago left a message for him hoping to hear back soon. Been calling all over to different outboard jet dealers no luck yet. I'm hoping if I'm patient that I'll come by a deal on a used one rather than have to shell out for a new one. Have a hard time swallowing almost 2000 for a new one.

Last year there was someone around here selling a new pump setup for an OMC 40 or 50 hp for around $1000 and I thought about converting my 96 Evinrude 40 but mine was a longshaft and was way too long for the jet tunnel. I got lucky and found a Mecury 60/45 jet short shaft 20 minutes away. I've seen a few pump setups pop up for sale, I don't recall if they are different for short vs long shaft motors though.

from what I can tell from talking to the people at outboard jets the only difference in the short and long shaft pumps is the length of the drive shaft that goes up to engine. So if I found a long shaft one I'd take it as long as the price was decent enough to still keep the cost of it plus a new drive shaft under the cost of a new one enough. I've been searching and calling around a lot no luck yet on a pump. I wish I could have found a motor with a jet already but a finding 40 plus hp tiller jet engine is hard. Found plenty of jet outboards in the power range I wanted but not tillers usually and tiller arm kits for a lot of older motors can be pretty hard to find and if new ones are still offered they usually cost a lot. I would have really liked to have 3cyl 60-70hp omc but tiller ones are rare and new tiller kits for them are around 1200. Seemed like it use to be easy to find the tillers for the 40-60hp two cylinder omc's but I haven't seen any in a while that people didn't want a premium for. New tiller kits for those run 1000-1200 as well. I would just rather leave my boat as a tiller. But I got the mariner for a ok price considering how hard it is to find a bigger tiller engine let alone for a reasonable price.

So right now I have nissan short shaft 40hp tiller on the boat still and this mariner ss 60hp tiller on a stand in the garage I have considered seeing if I could trade one or both for the right outboard.

If you want to take a complete flyer on some phone calls, here's the numbers for 3 places in central PA that do a lot of work on jet outboards:

Lakeside Marine - 717-545-5461
JLC Marine - 717-367-6838
Ducky's - 717-944-4232

thanks for the numbers that is what I have started doing is calling around to dealers that I know do a lot of jet outboard work to see if any have what I'm looking for. Called around to most of the Missouri ones I knew about a few in Virginia/West Virginia and some in Idaho and Oregon. I've been checking ebay quiet often and using search tempest to try and find anything on craigslist anywhere. Hopefully I will luck out sometime at least I'm hoping if I'm patient I will.

Anyone live near middletown PA it's just south of harrisburg PA found a guy selling a AG outboard jet talked to him this past friday but I don't think he wants to deal with shipping. He said he would look into shipping cost, but never got back with me and he won't return my calls now even though I offered him more than he was asking for it to make it worth while to deal with shipping. So if somebody lives near there and wants to try and get a hold of the guy and buy I would pay you for it and some extra to make up for getting it and shipping it. Hopefully he still has it the ad is still up on CL.

https://harrisburg.craigslist.org/bpo/5089498426.html

never mind finally got a hold of the guy last night getting him to ship hopefully I'll have a jet foot on my boat in next few weeks.