Outboard engine Servicing

Routine Outboard Maintenance

Outboard engine Servicing

Outboard engine Servicing

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Outboard engine Servicing

Outboard engine Servicing

After your engine has been properly run in, you'll need to found a maintenance habit that begins with systematic checks every time you use your boat. These checks won't take long, but could spell the inequity in the middle of life and death for your engine.

Daily Checks and Outboard Maintenance

Daily checks should include a quick look at just a few key items. First, make sure that your oil tank (if you have one) is topped up. If you have a four-stroke engine, be sure to check the crankcase-oil level and top up if needed. Check your owner's manual to conclude if your dipstick should be screwed in, or left unthreaded when you check the oil level. Failure to do so could give you a false reading, and lead to overfilling or underfilling your engine's crankcase, which can cause problems.

Check that you have adequate fuel for your intended trip, and that the fuel-tank vent is open.
With the engine tilted up, check for excess oil buildup near your propeller...it could mean that a seal in your lower gearcase has deteriorated. (Note: Some oil film buildup is normal in many cases; look for changes in the whole of buildup. If it appears to be increasing, check the oil level in the lower unit as discussed in the owner's manual) If the seal has failed, take the engine to an engine fix shop immediately to avoid costly gear-unit damage.

Check for fishing line wrapped colse to the propeller hub area. If you ignore it, the line can wrap tightly colse to the propshaft and cause the aforementioned gearcase seal failure.

If your engine is not through-bolted to the transom of your boat, make sure the screw clamps are tight and secure. Many engines have landed on the bottom of the sea through neglect of this simple check.

Sniff colse to for any sign of a fuel leak, and if you find one, fix it.

Once the engine is running, make sure to check the "telltale," or "tracer," spray, or exhaust discharge, to be distinct the water pump is working.

If all these items are in order, you're ready to go. There's just one more thing:

If you tow your boat on a trailer, and run it in salt water, flush the cooling principles daily with fresh water.

Monthly Checks and Outboard Maintenance

On a monthly basis, also the habit daily checks, it's a good idea to take off the engine cover and look for any corrosion build-up near cylinder heads and thermostat housings that could indicate leaky gaskets. Also, look for corrosion at wire terminal connections... Clean and tighten them as required and then use one of the possession anti-corrosion sprays ready at your dealership on all exposed electrical connections and unpainted metal parts of your outboard.
Make sure that throttle and gear-shift controls operate smoothly. Lubricate them as needed. Be aware that you should never shift gears unless your engine is running, so make sure the boat is securely made fast to the dock before checking shift controls for flat operation.

Next, run the engine with the cover off and check that none of the bolt-on components (fuel pumps, voltage regulators, coils, and the like) have come loose from their mounts. Make sure all wires and cables are securely led and clipped through harness mounts. Next, if your engine is qualified with an engine mounted fuel strainer, check to see if any water has collected in it. It will be easy to see, as the water will isolate from the fuel, drop to the bottom of the strainer, and be relatively clear in color compared to the fuel/oil mix above it. If you can see water, take off the strainer housing and drain out the water. Clean the screen element, reinstall, production sure the O-ring is in place before threading the housing back in, and re-check this assembly for fuel leaks after replacing the strainer housing. Naturally pump your fuel primer bulb until the filter/strainer fills with fuel, and look for leaking fuel.

Check for corrosion at thermostat housing at top of cylinder head or engine block

Check for corrosion at all wiring connections

Next, you should check the condition of any sacrificial zinc anodes attached to your engine. Check for zincs at the lower quantum of the mounting bracket on larger engines. There may be a zinc trim tab behind the propeller, or a small zinc screwed onto the antiventilation plate. Replace any zincs that are more than half eroded. In some areas they can dissolve quite rapidly, and if the zincs are wholly gone, the only thing left to dissolve is your engine housing.
Lastly, check your engine's battery, and top up the cells as needed.

Seasonal Checks and Outboard Maintenance

First let's define the word "seasonal." The way I apply it here, it unquestionably means every three months, or every full boating season, whichever comes first. In other words, if you can boat all the year round, or for more than three months anyway, do these checks and maintenance procedures at least once every three months, or about every 50 to 75 hours of operation.

But if you live in a region where your boat use is restricted to less than three months, or 75 hours, consider these "seasonal" checks to be every year checks.

Three-Month (or Seasonal) aid Checks

Seasonal check-ups are far more comprehensive, and distinct operations may need the expertise of your local dealer, but you'll unquestionably be able to do all of the work listed here except in a few cases.

Grease Points... All grease points on your engine should be filled with fresh grease as recommended by your builder for the specific engine location. Keep pumping in grease until all the old grease-and any water-is forced out. It's a messy business, so wipe the old stuff away with a rag as it emerges colse to the lube point.

Propeller Inspection... First, be distinct your ignition principles is disabled by disconnecting the spark plug wires at the plugs. Then take off the propeller to search for the shaft for any fishing line wrapped colse to it. If you find any, cut it all off.

Inspect the propeller for nicks, burrs, and any unwanted bends in the propeller blades. If the nicks are minor, you can clean them up with a file.

Inspect the propeller hub for any deterioration of the vulcanized rubber and its attachment to the hub spline. Any damage found here could spell trouble next season. If this hub is damaged, you'll need whether to have the prop rehubbed or a new prop. If you're in doubt, have your dealer make the final call. You unquestionably don't want to replace it if you don't have to.

If all looks okay here, wipe down the propeller shaft to take off the old grease, and apply a thin coat of an stylish waterproof grease to the shaft. Don't reinstall the propeller just yet, as you're going to run the engine to flush the cooling system, and you should never run an engine out of the water with the propeller on because of the distinct danger from the whirring blades.

When you do reinstall the propeller however, remember to replace the cotter pin for the prop nut if your engine is qualified with one. If your engine uses a Nylock self-locking prop nut, it should be replaced, as these lock effectively only once.

Gearcase-Oil Change... The next step in the seasonal aid process is to convert the gearcase oil. On most outboards, the gearcase will have two screw plugs evident in the side of the gear housing. Some engines, however, will have the gear unit's drain and fill screws settled on the hub just send of the propeller, in which case they can only be reached with the propeller removed.

To drain the fluid from your unit, wipe the skeg clean at the very bottom of the engine and attach a piece of masking tape to the skeg.

Get a clean package that's large adequate to hold all the oil in your gearcase and place it under the tape. take off the lower drain plug. Nothing much will come out until you gradually unscrew the upper check plug. The oil will then leak down the side of the gear housing, down the side of the skeg, and flow level down the edge of the tape into your drain pan.

Carefully search for the oil for immoderate metal filings or discoloration. If the oil appears milky, or if you noticed a large whole of water coming out of the drain before the oil, then water has somehow migrated into the gearcase, indicating a bad seal.

Clean off the magnetic pickup found on many lower drain plugs and get ready to refill the lower unit with the correct gear oil.

A note of caution here: Don't let anything talk you into using level gear oil as supplied by auto parts stores. Although this oil may have the same distinctive rotten egg odour as the fluid you have just removed from your outboard engine, it may not be the same stuff. Typically, the extra outboard engine gear oils have a water-dispersant additive in them that's not found in the automotive grades. Also, be aware that not all outboards use gear oil in their gearcases. Some use four-stroke engine oil, and others use a fluid quite similar to automotive self-acting transmission oil. Be sure to check the specifications for your engine. It's best to go to your dealer to buy a package of the correct oil and one of the extra fill pumps.

These pumps are quite cheap and fit not only the oil container, but screw directly into the threaded lower unit drainplug hole on your engine, minimizing mess. This is an important point, because you're going to fill the gearcase from the bottom up. Once you are set-up , Naturally work the pump until you just begin to see oil seeping from the top check-plug hole. Then reinstall the check plug and snug up the screw.

Next, get the drain/fill plug ready to install, wipe down the magnetic pickup, and be sure the sealing Oring or gasket is whether in place on the screw plug or in the gear housing. Unscrew the pump tool and swiftly insert the drain/fill plug. Tighten it fully. Wipe off any excess oil from the gearcase and watch for leaks. Your oil convert is complete.

Cooling System... The next step in the seasonal aid is to wholly flush your cooling principles with fresh water. A precaution here is to make distinct that the flush adapter stays in place while you are flushing the engine. If the adapter slides down on the lower unit to a point below the water inlet, you could burn out the engine's water pump-or the engine itself-if it's left unattended for even a brief time.

As part of this cooling principles service, it's also a good idea to take off and clean your engine's thermostat, if it has one. The internal cavity into which the thermostat and bypass valve fits is a trap for sand, salt, and normal debris that gets past the principles pickup strainer. With the thermostat removed, clean out any muck you find there and, with the engine running, run fresh water up from the flushing adapter through the engine to this point. You'll now know for distinct that the internal water flow is unrestricted, because water will leak out at this point. Just run the engine long adequate to conclude that a good solid flow of water is pouring out.

After the thermostat has been cleaned, reinstall it, using new gaskets, and run the engine again to be sure the thermostat cover is not leaking. If your engine has seemed to be running too hot lately, but your inspection has now revealed that water is getting to this point in adequate amounts, the execution of the thermostat could be the problem.

Impeller Replacement. In addition to flushing the cooling principles and checking the thermostat, you may also regard the change of your water-pump impeller as habit maintenance. To tell the truth, manufacturer's recommendations vary on this score, some suggesting that you renew the impeller every year, and others that you replace it only as needed. If you normally speculation far offshore, where failure of the water pump could be a serious problem, replace that impeller yearly.

On the other hand, if you use your motor only occasionally throughout the season, or on a tender, for non-risky trips from ship to shore, I'd advise you to replace the impeller every other year.
Cylinder Compression... Now that you've run your engine for a bit to flush your cooling system, and have warmed it up, it's a good idea to achieve the every year compression test. Remember, compression is one of your engine's basic needs and a compression check can often catch impending problems before they come to be major.

For example, piston rings that are just beginning to gum up will cause low compression before they fail completely. Usually, you can cure this qoute by running a manufacturer-approved decarbonizing fluid such as Omc or Mercury "Engine Tuner" through the engine. If you don't catch this qoute in time, the only solution is to take the engine apart. It's simple to use these engine tuners-the instructions are right there on the stock label.

What's often not so easy is looking out what normal compression is for your engine. Often the specs are not given in the engine owner's manual or even in the workshop aid manual. So it's a good idea to check the compression when the engine is fairly new and in good running order. Write down the compression figures for each cylinder in your manual for future reference.

As a matter of interest, the actual pressure is not that important-it's the inequity from the norm that you should be concerned with. In the case of a multicylinder engine, start worrying if any one cylinder varies from the others by 15 pounds per quadrate inch (psi) or more. If yours is a single-cylinder engine, a drop of 15 psi from the norm you established when it was new is cause for concern. The steps for performing a compression test are unquestionably quite simple, but you must result them exactly for your own security and the accuracy of the readings. So be warned-don't skip any of these steps:

1. First, disable the ignition principles by unplugging the gang plug going into your ignition module. If your engine has an accident shutoff switch, Naturally take off the lanyard clip to disable the ignition. If neither of these solutions works on your engine, take a wire jumper lead and associate one end to a good engine ground, and the other end to the metal connector inside the spark plug boot. You'll have to use one jumper for each plug wire. Remember, Naturally disconnecting all the plug wires may be a perilous move. Once you take off all your spark plugs and begin cranking over your engine, an explosive fuel/oil mix will be spraying out of the plug holes. A plug wire could spark and ignite this mix outside of the combustion chamber if it isn't grounded to the engine. Also, this freewheeling type of spark could damage the ignition coils or modules.
2. Remove all the spark plugs, and be sure to keep them in order so you can return them to the cylinders they came from. Thought about search for the company end of the plugs, looking for any inconsistency in coloration, and for any sign of water or rust near the tip.
3. Next, thread your compression gauge into the #1 spark-plug hole and "zero" the gauge.
4. Open the throttle as far as possible, to ensure that the cylinder gets an unrestricted contribute of air. (Some engines allow only minimal occasion if the gearshift is in neutral, to guard against over-revving.)
5. Crank over the engine an equal whole of times for each cylinder you test, and be sure to re-zero the gauge for each cylinder. If you have
an galvanic start, count the seconds: "One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thousand four" and so on, with the key or start button engaged. This will give you adequate cranking time for a usable reading. If you have a pull start, pull the cord four to five times for each cylinder you are testing.
6. Record your readings from each cylinder for future reference. Use the 15 psi criterion already mentioned to conclude if additional activity is required.

If compression readings are lower than normal for any cylinders, try a "wet" compression test, which will temporarily seal the piston rings, and conclude if they are the cause of the low reading.

To achieve this test, get a can of your favorite fogging oil and insert the red nozzle tube in the push button. Now Thought about insert the other end of the tube into the spark plug hole and spray into the cylinder with a circular petition to distribute oil spray all colse to the perimeter of the piston. Spray for about four seconds.

Remove the nozzle and setup your compression tester. Spin the engine over exactly the same whole of times you did for the previous test and correlate your gauge readings. If the compression rises noticeably, then your rings are beginning to stick.

If you've caught the qoute early enough, decarbonizing with an "engine tuner" fluid, as described above, may cure it. If the dry compression was unquestionably low, and no convert is evident during the wet test, it's too late. Your rings and/or piston are worn to the point where major engine disassembly will be required. So be brave, and consult your dealer.

If two adjacent cylinders on a multicylinder engine give a similarly low reading, or if there was evidence of water or rust on the spark plugs from these cylinders, then the qoute is a faulty head gasket. This is normally a qoute better left for a professional to deal with, but if you have adequate engine experience, you may want to tackle it yourself.

Incidentally, beware of compression readings from an engine that has been in storehouse for an extended period. While it's sitting idle, the piston rings will "relax" and retract slightly, often giving an initially low and misleading reading. Always run an engine to operating temperature to ensure that the reading you get is accurate.

One last tip-if the spark plugs have been in the engine for the whole season, now's the time to replace them.

Fuel System... The next phase of the every year inspection is to wholly check your boat's whole fuel principles for any signs of leaks, loose clamps, or cracked, frayed hoses and squeeze bulbs. Any rust patches on your fuel tanks should be sanded and touched up. Also, search for the venting principles for your fuel tank. It should be free to breathe. Any restriction can stop your engine.

An easy way to check for a fuel leak from the primer bulb to the engine is to squeeze the bulb until it gets firm, and hold pressure on it to be distinct it remains firm while the engine's not running. If it doesn't stay firm, there's a leak in the principles in the middle of the bulb and the engine, or in the engine itself at the carburetor or fuel pump.

You may have to take off some entrance panels on your boat to do a optical check of the whole fuel delivery system, but don't neglect this important task.

Automatic Oiler... Your next job is to check the self-acting oil-blending system, if your engine is so equipped. Clean and search for all lines and connections, replacing any cracked lines and tightening loose connections as required. It's a good idea to check with your dealer for specific recommendations for your engine. On some engines, oil' delivery pump diaphragms should be supplanted as part of an every year service.

Steering... Your boat's steering principles needs to be wholly inspected at least once a year, but don't hesitate to see what's amiss any time you feel unusual looseness or tightness in the steering wheel. search for steering cables for any signs of separation, cracks in the outer sheathing, or rust buildup near the cable ends.

Battery... Next, check and clean all battery-cable connections and battery tops. Smear a light coating of Vaseline or similar light grease over the tightened connection. If you're planning to put the boat in storage, take off the battery and trickle-charge it every month.

Two Final Adjustments. Last, you should have your dealer set your ignition timing, and adjust your carburetor(s). These are not procedures the part-time mechanic should attempt on an outboard engine. There are Naturally too many costly tools required.

Outboard engine Servicing

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