MrBigStuff
Chief Petty Officer
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2004
- Messages
- 497
I'm usually pretty good about maintaining my outboards. This year, I got caught with a lot of work and hit with an early cold snap. I've never had anything but lube come out of my lower units so I was lamenting not attending to them but also not too worried about them freezing. It got the better of me this past weekend so I made the time and wouldn't you know it, not a single drop came out of one of them. Oh, oh.
I got my propane torch and slowly heated the LU. After just a few seconds, out starts the water. Drips at first then a stream. Followed by globs of lube. As it warmed, I'd get spits of water and ever thinner lube until it was empty. Fortunately, it appears that nothing got damaged.
The reason I posted was to let others know, it's not too late! It's easy to rationalize that any damage is already done or if it hasn't broke yet, it probably won't. If you got caught up and didn't get to it, it may not be too late for your LU either.
I got my propane torch and slowly heated the LU. After just a few seconds, out starts the water. Drips at first then a stream. Followed by globs of lube. As it warmed, I'd get spits of water and ever thinner lube until it was empty. Fortunately, it appears that nothing got damaged.
The reason I posted was to let others know, it's not too late! It's easy to rationalize that any damage is already done or if it hasn't broke yet, it probably won't. If you got caught up and didn't get to it, it may not be too late for your LU either.
