Towing with o.b. motor

[plztellme]

I have an O.B motor on my boat. Should I tow it with the motor up or down?

 

[rockyrude]

Re: Towing with o.b. motor

Are you talking about on the water or on the trailer?

 

[colding]

Re: Towing with o.b. motor

I tow my 90HP Johnson trimmed up. It has a built-in transom saver that locks it in place. If it were towed in the down position, it would probably drag on every bump in the road, ruining your skeg or lower unit, depending, of course, how high your trailer keeps the boat off the ground. My 25HP Mercury with tiller handle, however, I tow while down. My trailer has it high enough it doesn't come anywhere near the ground. I have tried towing it with the motor up, but it seems to jump around too much when hitting bumps and such.

 

[Fireman431]

Re: Towing with o.b. motor

Tow whichever way gives you adequate skeg clearance. The issue is storing it when you get home. If it's a carburetored engine, store it in the upright (running) position. Never store it in the tilted up position.

 

[colding]

Re: Towing with o.b. motor

Why store it in the upright position? I leave the 90HP up, and the 25HP down. The 25 is a 4-stroke, the 90 is a 2-stroke. Is it ok to leave it up if you use it often?

 

[Philster]

Re: Towing with o.b. motor

Towing your boat: Put the motor up if you need to gain sufficient clearance. Some engine builders recommend a transom saver on some models because they don't want the tilt rams doing the work.

When home: In winter or when a freeze is a risk, set all O/B's down at all times.

When home and no freezing chance: Tilt the darn O/B all you want, but many O/B owners who have carbs report it being easier to prime and start a carbed O/B that didn't get tilted.

Trim: you trim an engine when under power

Tilt: what you do to raise an O/B to get clearance.

The last two are just terminology.

 

[Home Cookin']

Re: Towing with o.b. motor

Why store it in the upright position? I leave the 90HP up, and the 25HP down. The 25 is a 4-stroke, the 90 is a 2-stroke. Is it ok to leave it up if you use it often?

It's OK if you use it often. Point is, not to let fluids coagulate in the corners, or trap water that may freeze in the lower unit.

I have a Yam 50 that is hard to start first time (like kill-switch out hard) unless it's tilted all the way down.

 

[lncoop]

Re: Towing with o.b. motor

Why store it in the upright position? I leave the 90HP up, and the 25HP down. The 25 is a 4-stroke, the 90 is a 2-stroke. Is it ok to leave it up if you use it often?

Mainly you just have to store it down in the winter so water doesn't freeze in it. Your call of course, but you might want to consider getting a transom saver (AKA motor deflopperizer) for your ninety. The lock holds it in place but doesn't serve the same purpose as a transom saver. I towed without one and ended up with cracks in my motor pod (party barge). Would they have developed any way? Maybe, maybe not. There's ongoing disagreement regarding the efficacy of MDs, but my welder told me I should be using one, so I be using one.

 

[H20Rat]

Re: Towing with o.b. motor

Some outboards are great at spitting fuel out the carbs if they are stored tilted up. Always down for storage at least...

 

[Circles47]

Re: Towing with o.b. motor

I always tow with mine up. It seems safer, and I always use the transom saver.

 

[Fireman431]

Re: Towing with o.b. motor

Some outboards are great at spitting fuel out the carbs if they are stored tilted up. Always down for storage at least...

Exactly the reason to store with it down. A (certified) marine mechanic schooled me about this after my second carb rebuild. Trailer it however you want. Store it down, even if it's overnight. Only takes a couple of seconds and I never had carb trouble after that.

 

[Chris1956]

Re: Towing with o.b. motor

Gee, I have never believed that the power trim of a motor cannot support the weight of a motor while being trailered. That simply makes no sense as the power trim can hold the motor in any trim position all day at full throttle. Ditto for the transom strangth. If a bump in the road causes enough stress to crack your transom, be glad you found it while trailering, as full throttle while underway would put lots more strain on it.

Anyway, the answer to the OP's question is: If you have PTT trim the motor up enough to clear any road obstacles, and you are good to go. Locking it all the way up is fine, but unnecessary, and can cause the motor to bounce more.....If no PTT, locking it up or using a transom saver make make sense.

 

[lncoop]

Re: Towing with o.b. motor

Gee, I have never believed that the power trim of a motor cannot support the weight of a motor while being trailered. That simply makes no sense as the power trim can hold the motor in any trim position all day at full throttle. Ditto for the transom strangth. If a bump in the road causes enough stress to crack your transom, be glad you found it while trailering, as full throttle while underway would put lots more strain on it.

Anyway, the answer to the OP's question is: If you have PTT trim the motor up enough to clear any road obstacles, and you are good to go. Locking it all the way up is fine, but unnecessary, and can cause the motor to bounce more.....If no PTT, locking it up or using a transom saver make make sense.

Chris, if you're responding to me I didn't mean to imply the PT&T couldn't handle the weight of the motor, but I can see where I might have given that impression. My understanding is the transom saver's purpose is not to support weight, but rather to eliminate any bounce that would otherwise occur while trailering thereby decreasing the possiblity of stress cracks and other fun stuff over time. In fact, they're really only intended to be used with motors that have PT&T. In my mind the motor deflopperizer debate is similar to the fuel stabilizer debate. Do I really need one? I don't know, but to me it's worth the one time cost of two twelve packs of Fat Tire to err on the side of caution. As for the OP, do we know what kind of rig he has?

 

[Philster]

Re: Towing with o.b. motor

Gee, I have never believed that the power trim of a motor cannot support the weight of a motor while being trailered. That simply makes no sense as the power trim can hold the motor in any trim position all day at full throttle. Ditto for the transom strangth. If a bump in the road causes enough stress to crack your transom, be glad you found it while trailering, as full throttle while underway would put lots more strain on it.

Anyway, the answer to the OP's question is: If you have PTT trim the motor up enough to clear any road obstacles, and you are good to go. Locking it all the way up is fine, but unnecessary, and can cause the motor to bounce more.....If no PTT, locking it up or using a transom saver make make sense.

Fact is that Mercury recommends that my motor be supported by a transom saver because the rams in the tilt position are not intended to support the weight of the engine when towing.

BoatUS did some homework on the issue, and it's a good read:

http://www.boatus.com/trailerclub/magazine/2012/march/transomsavers.asp

 

[bonz_d]

Re: Towing with o.b. motor

Tow my smaller Lund with it down. Lots of ground clearance.

 

[scipper77]

Re: Towing with o.b. motor

shock loading (like hitting a pothole, or going over train tracks) can briefly apply a pretty strong force on whatever is supporting the motor. I'm no expert so I will stop short of saying that this type of force is greater than the force the prop creates on the water. If there is any play in the system (there shouldn't be) the motor will gain a little momentum as it bounces up and down, magnifying that shock when it hits the end of it's travel.

My understanding is that transom savers that attach to the rams eliminate play when slightly preloaded and reduce the force that the seals in the rams see. Transom savers at the lower unit distribute the load to the trailer, and also eliminate any play when preloaded.

I am not saying transom savers are needed, just thinking out loud about what these devices actually do.

 

[Home Cookin']

Re: Towing with o.b. motor

I agree with Chris that the transom had better be able to handle a bouncing motor on a trailer (normal roads) or you have problems a beyond "saving."
However, equipment such PTT, while designed to hanlde the weight and pressure, need not be subjected to the pounding of a bouncing motor. The pressure they take under use on the water is relatively constant. And although I've left a motor tilted up on the PTT instead of the bracket with no ill effects, I think it's better not to subject the equipment to a load when not in use; all equipment has its life span. Why push it if you can easily allieve the pressure?

 

[Chris1956]

Re: Towing with o.b. motor

HC makes a good point, however, my opinion is that the PTT is easily up to the bouncing. Here is my reasoning. I have a high performance outboard boat. At high speed (50 + MPH) the boat skims the suface of the water with the motor trimmed quite high. Most days the water has some chop so the boat is catching the top of the chop and then clearing the water in the trough. This is not even close to a steady load on the PTT. I have never had a PTT unit fail in the 30 years I have owned the boat.

On a closing note, if a transom saver makes you feel good, use it. I consider it to be snake oil.

 

[johnstonjohnr]

Re: Towing with o.b. motor

Tow whichever way gives you adequate skeg clearance. The issue is storing it when you get home. If it's a carburetored engine, store it in the upright (running) position. Never store it in the tilted up position.

When you say "store it", is that only for the winter type store it or if I am not going to use it for 2-3 weeks? I trailer it in the up-ish position with a transport bar installed. Also when trailering in this position should I use a tie-down to hold the motor from moving at all? This is all new to me...so much to remember...:facepalm: I actually made a check list on my phone for leaving the house, pre-launch, running, and loading. Hopefully after awhile it will just become habit.

 

[Home Cookin']

Re: Towing with o.b. motor

those of us who keep OB's in the water year round "store" the motor tilted up. What matters is how long they stay that way without being run--running resets the clock. Even in the dead of winter I run mine every two weeks whether I want to or not. But it's not unusual for boats around here to go unused for weeks at a time--and I'm sure that the longer they go unused, the more problems they encounter, whether from tilting or otherwise. But my neighbor across the cove has the same motor I do (Yam 150) and he leaves his tilted in the water all winter with no use for months, even during freezes, and off he goes in the spring. Point is, while it's better to keep them down, it's not the end of the world if you don't.

(for context, our freezes are seldom below 20* and the water temps (salt water) goes down to 35*. We'll get ice occasionally, and sometimes temps in the 10-20* range. I lower my motor if it's going below 30; he doesn't.)