Re: OMC cork floats?

[DAN ANDERSON]

No doubt OMC left brass because of cost (both materials & labor). Not sure about cost of the nitrophil? float vs cork, but I guess cork was getting more costly. This might be one of those rare cases where newer is better. We have been dealing with ethanol since the mid ’80s. At first it would come and go according to fuel cost. Couldn’t afford to put it in unless fuel prices rose to a certain point. Ethanol still cost more to produce than it saves. (Different subject)! The new material floats have been with us through all of this and have done fine. I have not seen any failures of the float materials in big outboards & I saw a LOT of big outboards in my carrer. I now put new floats in everything I work on. The new style material come in the OEM kits most of the time. On the kits that don’t come with one I make one out of another from a different style float of a simular shape/style. the ones I have run into lately with cork floats are the 9.5 & RD/Big Twin kits. Not sure why they don’t get updated?
BTW: I put the little round Merc float in the TN, TD, etc. works like a champ.

Dan in TN