Hitting Under Water Objects When Mtr Locked it Place

[John6012]

I have a 9.8 Nissan and I think that it would be safer to disengage the tilt-lock when boating due to the possibility of hitting underwater obstacles. I'd hate to hit an object and tear out the transom. What do you think? And how would I disengage the lever other than tieing it in place? (I hope I'm in the right topic/subject area).

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Hitting Under Water Objects When Mtr Locked it Place

You are correct that the motor can't kick up if the tilt lock prevents that. On the other hand, if you try reverse with any amount of power the motor would also kick up. A reasonable person would say -- allow the motor to kick up when striking a submerged object. If you need to fabricate something to accomplish this by all means do it.

 

[Paul Moir]

Re: Hitting Under Water Objects When Mtr Locked it Place

All the outboards I've seen have a mechanism to release the lock in case of strikes. Johnny/Rudes used to use a spring loaded tilt lock to accomplish that, I've seen some others that have a obvious failure point designed into the lock. I'm sure your 9.8 has something similar.<br /><br />That said, when I'm expecting to strike bottom, I usually pop off the reverse lock (if possible).

 

[John_S]

Re: Hitting Under Water Objects When Mtr Locked it Place

I have a Nissn 18E and 40C. Both have a lock release levers. I run some shallow rocky rivers, and almost always have the lock released. It became a habit, and run that way on most lakes. It is on one side of the engine or the other. Both of mine are dis-engaged by pushing down on the lever. Check your owners manual for how to dis-engage the lever on yours. See the Nissan or Tohatsu website if you lost your owners manual. <br /><br />Besides reverse, you need to come off plane, not all at once, or the motor will kick-up. You will hear it when it does. When the end of the prop clears the water, you are running open exhaust. In reverse, just cut back on throttle, and motor will drop back down. Coming off plane too fast, will do it by itself. The water pick-up can be out of the water when the engine kicks up, so don't want to be running that way for very long.

 

[JB]

Re: Hitting Under Water Objects When Mtr Locked it Place

Outboard Non-repair topic