THE PARTS GURU

Marine Tech, Evinrude Guru

The day after BRP announced in June that it would stop building Evinrude outboards, we discovered Charlie Luedeke while searching for a waterpump impeller for a 1956 Evinrude Lark. A certified master technician with more than 45 years’ experience, Luedeke opened Marine Tech in 1986 as an Evinrude-authorized service center in New London, Wisconsin. He has since acquired the new original stock (NOS) parts inventory of more than 30 Evinrude or Johnson outboard dealerships, which he estimates is worth more than $2 million.

Why did you start buying up parts?

It was always cheaper to buy NOS parts at an auction or sale than getting them from OMC or BRP. Some dealerships close up, but others just don’t want these old parts around because they take up a lot of space.

You don’t have a website?

I have a great helper, Tom Statezny, who spent an entire year creating an inventory, which we uploaded to the BRP parts search system. If a dealer doesn’t have that 1956 impeller, other dealers who do have the part pop up on the screen. Dealers from all over the country give customers my phone number, and some days I get 70 calls.

Why should we buy NOS parts for older motors?

The difference between the $100 NOS OMC fuel pump I’ll sell you and the $25 made-in-China pump you’ll find on Amazon is that the NOS pump will work.