Motor "Discoveries"

[Raider Ronnie]

Originally Posted by Ian

So I'm officially regretting not knowing more about outboard motors when I bought my boat.

As part of my first winterizing process this week, I checked the lower unit oil by popping the lower plug and letting a little pour out into a cup I had laying around. Solid milky gray...

It's not necessarily a terrible discovery, since i never checked the oil when I bought the boat, so I don't know if this has ever been changed. The stupidity of the situation is that I wait until the coldest snap in November in recent memory to make this discovery.

So now I have plans to flush a couple quarts of lower unit oil through the LU tomorrow and run it on muffs in the yard in between flushes to see if this is a seal problem, or just a case of old oil.

To make matters a tiny bit worse, there's metal dust in the oil... but it's the powder, not flecks... so again, I'm hoping it's just old oil that collected grindings from typical wear.

Wish me luck? Here's to draining oil in cold-arse temps! It's like waiting for honey to run off a spoon!

I should have known when I bought the boat that I'd need a barn... time to go house shopping

Remove the prop then remove the lower unit.
Sounds like it need seals replaced anyway.
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[Ian]

Originally Posted by Raider Ronnie

Remove the prop then remove the lower unit.
Sounds like it need seals replaced anyway.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

So I'm an outboard novice, but a very mechanically inclined individual... how difficult is that as a DIY job?

For benchmarking sake: The only thing I've ever disassembled and not been able to put back together better than I found it was a shimano conventional reel...
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