Flushing your outboard

[Ozzie]

I have recently had some outboard work performed on my TS motor, 5hp mariner, by a small local repair man down on the central coast that the prop repair man put me onto. An old and well travelled gent who remanufactured a few missing bits for me. We got to discussing flushing outboards. His sage advice which he has been doing for decades was to put a cup of diesel in your flushing tank. As per advice from the "other" place I had began only recently using a little detergent which he said was a big no no.

The diesel coats the water ways with a thin film of oil that prevents salt buildup in the next run. To prove his practice he showed me one of his own OBs stripped and the waterways were clean as a whistle. He then showed me a customers ob he was working on with quite bad salt deposits and it was regularly flushed with water. I dont have a permanent flushing 44gal tank like him but I figure a quarter cup in my little garbage tin will do the job. I know there is a commercial product called saltoff or saltaway but it is, I understand, fairly expensive. This would be cheap as chips for my use. He said in his own permanent tank the diesel also stops mozzies breeding in it

[snoopebj]

Good tip Ozzie makes a lot of sense. Probably extend impeller life also. I don't use a tank just a flushing boot on the water hose but will use one now with the diesel.
I've been shooting good old WD40 up the water outlet nozzle after flushing in the hope of avoiding the blockages I've had with previous motors. Not sure of the wisdom of this but the Yammie's survived two years so far prob due for a new impeller now anyway.
Diversifying but I'm looking for a small 2hp O.B. to use on my dinghy and more importantly as an auxilliary motor. These damn things let you down at critical moments.Any ideas re this and small Chinese outbards.

[Mark]

Emrys

I just purchased last week a Parsun outboard for my inflatable, been running it in this week, still too early to tell how it goes and how long it will last - seems to be a hybrid between merc and yammie and perfoms currently quite well - pushed my unflatable along at almost 11 kts with me solo the other day but with 4 people around 5 kts - all this for 800 odd bucks and a 5.8 hp motor. Research seems to indicate they are reliable. Of course i could be saying opposite in a couple of yrs time although they have 2 yr waranty

Best

Mark

[Yara50]

I am very happy with my 2.3 hp Honda. 4 stroke, quiet, drain screw for carby, no need to flush, and at $1000 a reasonable price with a 3 yr warranty, (Its air cooled)

[Ozzie]

Yes air cooled is great, my 35 year old Ancient Mariner 5 is still going even tho I only keep it as a spare now ,but you can't fault the longevity ...only a bit noisy.

http://www.leeroysramblings.com/water_circulation.htm

This is an interesting read on water circulation . It's about old Johnson OBs but I learned a few things. May be of interest to others.

We practice sailing back to the mooring quite often now but there is usually some fly in the ointment . Strong current and only light winds, lots of traffic, wind in wrong direction, so I'm not ready to give up the motor yet if ever. I'm amazed at all these solo circumnavigations and microcruisers who go motorless.

[snoopebj]

"Screw your plug screw in and see if it is now "Peeing". If not then poke a wire up the pee hole from the outside to free anything plugging it up."
. Ouch
comprehensive article Ozzie but I might not try that one!
I like the air cooled Honda option Ian mentioned though. Xmas has left me broke so prob. go for 2hp. Chinese o.b. maybe Parsun as IMark suggested.
Cheers

[Steve]

I just flush the salt from the engine with fresh clean water

[Mark]

Must say I have an issue with diesel in the water trick. pollution into our waterways being the main objection. Clean rainwater from my tank is all I use.

Cheers

Mark

[Ozzie]

True Mark, and I would not advocate tipping your flush water down a drain or the sewer. Sadly we, as boaters cause probably far worse polution simply by using our two stroke outboards or to a lesser extent four stroke. Google "pollution from two stroke outboards"and there are a frightening number of results. At least we as trailer sailors can take some pride in the fact that 100 investigators in a year's normal use probably cause less pollution than MV CLOWNHEAD with its twin 100 hp s going for a single days outside fishing.

It would be nice not polute at all, but we gave up that gold pass a long time ago.

[Steve]

Sometimes you have to be a little careful when dealing with a corrosive environment that you don't create a corrosive solution that water cannot dissolve or wash away. As most of us know with aluminum and stainless steel they require oxygen to react with so they can protect themselves, a corrosive cocktail of oily salt sludge stopping that oxygen feed, may do harm. Most corrosion in motors comes about from dissimilar metals in an electrolyte (salt water), Allot of the modern engines these days have eliminated allot of the more reactive dissimilar metals from the cooling system. I also know that allot of bad corrosion in outboards happens after the motor may have broken down and was unable to be flushed and may have sat in that state until someone repaired it. That motor may have always been flushed.
A good example of the modern marine engine is the Yanmar 3YM 30, they don't contain Zink anodes within the cooling system any more, obviously they must have the corrosion under control.