sunken outboard

[zelatore]

:mad: One of my staff made a minor, tiny little mistake yesterday that led to a dinghy sinking in a slip last night. I happened to see it as I was working on my own boat about 8:00 with just the bow sticking up tied to the dock. :mad:

So, now I've got an older 30 hp 2-stroke Johnson that's sat overnight in salt water. Last night I was alone and there was little I could do to get the thing out of the water...I'll have to figure out how we'll raise it this morning when the rest of my crew gets here. Having little outboard OR two-stroke knowledge, any words of advice on how to salvage this thing?

I plan to of course drain the built in fuel tank and flush, and we'll pull the plugs on the motor ASAP and hose it down with WD40 then spin it over a few times to blow out any extra water before hitting it with the oil again. I suppose we should drain the lower unit as well and re-fill it. I'm sure the battery is a gonner, so that will be replaced. And I suspect everythign else like the switch panel, gauges, wiring, and contols will get a solid dousing with WD40.

I know a lot of board members have been playing with outboards for years - and some of you have probably dealt with this before. Any words of wisdom?

(other than kill the tech...can't do that; he's normally my best guy!:doh:)

At least it was just a used $5000 dinghy, and one of our old beater inventory at that. Thank God for small favors, I guess.

[gcarter]

I watched a guy recover a sunken PWC once.....
drained and refilled the fuel tank
pulled the plugs
hooked up the electrical system w/some jumper cables to a car
and cranked, cranked, and cranked!!!!!!!!
finally put the plugs back in and it cranked right up.
Oh yeah, he flushed everything thoroughly w/fresh water.

[Bigbroadjumper]

You may want to post this question on www.screamandfly.com. They know every thing about outboards. Good luck.

[DonziJon]

Wolfeboro, NH: A couple of years ago at the Bi-Annual "Antique Race Boat Regatta". A guy with a Berkley Jet with a Blown Chrysler in the back made like a submarine at about 80 MPH while "fooling around" with jet trim in order to make a really BIG rooster tail, ...I'm guessing it had to be 50 feet high and 400 feet long. Hit a wake wrong and sploosh. The name of the boat was "Squirt". In those days they called them "Ski Boats".

No one was injured and the boat was towed back to the dock.. nose up. The crane hauled it out and it was back in the water an hour later running.

Salt water is a different story. Wet dash panel electrics are Done. They may work today after a flushing, but down the road the salt crystals will prevail.

An outboard in salt water ...pull the plugs, hose it off inside and out with plenty of fresh water, drain the carb and integral tank, refill and restart. NO Need to drain the gear case because it's already a sealed unit. It might be reluctant to start until the water gets spun out from under the flywheel where the ignition stuff is. Just pull the flywheel and hose everything off under there as well.

[MOP]

I done a few maybe 100 or so, hose it down with fresh water, pull the bottom plugs out of the carbs pump some gas through with the primer bulb that will get the water out of them. Remove the spark plugs, hopefully the starter will still crank it over if not replace it now, hold the crab butterflies full open and run a can of CRC through it while spinning it over. Next pull the wheel everything under it must washed in FW dried and CRC'ed and put back, once that is done fire it up it up it should be just fine and will clean its internals up while running.

[VetteLT193]

salt away the heck out of everything too. using plain water doesn't work.

[Carl C]

Do everything mentioned so far and give it a good run. The starter, alternator if it has one and other electronics may need to be replaced since you cannot get rid of all the salt. Fresh water would have been much simpler.

[zelatore]

Well, she's out of the water. I used the boom of a crappy old sailboat to help lift it onto the dock. It's only a 12' Zodiac RIB, but I'd guess it's about a half-ton full of water....

In talking to the guy I had working on it yesterday he said he had gotten it running and taken it out to see about the overheating issue (the original problem). Ran it about 5 miles I guess. Then he ordered a water pump kit for it. OK so far. But he didn't fully inflate the tubes prior to the run, and the port tube pulled loose from the hull somewhat. That seems to have let the aft end of the boat settle while in at the dock until it started taking on water. Once that happened, the weight of the added water caused the tube to tear loose down the whole side which put everything under excpt the bow.

We've got the tube temporarily re-attached and re-inflated. Now we're going to float it over to our hydro hoist and lift it so we can start flushing the cylinders, carb, tank, dash, etc

[Forrest]

I've rebuilt a few sunken outboards myself, and from my experience, the best thing that you can do is to submerge the entire engine in a big tub of fresh water until you can get a chance to tear it down and rebuild it. Once any amount of corrosion starts to form on the needle bearing between the rods and the crank, its just a matter of time before the power head will self-destruct. Best of luck.

[DonziJon]

Even MORE fun is when you dump your outboard overboard while your'e hand steering with the tiller, at speed. Remember those pesky little "clamps" that would come loose while you were making a fast turn. :bonk: I think that was probably the "initiation" to power boating that we can ALL claim experience with.

[zelatore]

OK, I've never done THAT. I do have a 10' rib with a 15 hp Merc I use as a tender for my Carver, but so far I've remembered to tighten down the screw-clamps...

Of course, my father told me about loosing the 60 hp o/b off the back of his buddie's skiff on the Ohio river 'back in the day'. (I'll guess this was in the 60's - when 60 hp was about all you could get). All that was left holding it up was the the steering cables and his buddy who jumped into the back and grabbed hold of it yelling 'shut it off! shut if off!' And probably a few other words too I would guess.

[DonziJon]

OK, I've never done THAT. I do have a 10' rib with a 15 hp Merc I use as a tender for my Carver, but so far I've remembered to tighten down the screw-clamps...
Of course, my father told me about loosing the 60 hp o/b off the back of his buddie's skiff on the Ohio river 'back in the day'. (I'll guess this was in the 60's - when 60 hp was about all you could get). All that was left holding it up was the the steering cables and his buddy who jumped into the back and grabbed hold of it yelling 'shut it off! shut if off!' And probably a few other words too I would guess.

"Back in the day": YUP. :) In 1957 or '58 Merc came out with the first 60 HP Six Cylinder in line outboard. I remember it weighed 180 pounds, which was 25pounds lighter than the Evinrude/Johnson "Fat 50" V4. I wouldn't want to be wrestling with that thing while it was running loose. That same year I dumped my Merc 20H off the back of my Sid Craft B Utility. The steering cables saved the day. Luckily it never really got submerged. Just hauled it back up on the transom, and off I went. Things were much simpler then. :cool:

[BUIZILLA]

I've rebuilt a few sunken outboards myself, and from my experience, the best thing that you can do is to submerge the entire engine in a big tub of fresh water until you can get a chance to tear it down and rebuild it. Once any amount of corrosion starts to form on the needle bearing between the rods and the crank, its just a matter of time before the power head will self-destruct. Best of luck. this is going to be your biggest obstacle.... especially the upper crank needle bearing....

[MOP]

Get it running ans run the heck out of it, it will be fine I never ever lost one and I bet I have done triple the amount of most. We had two tin boat rental fleets about 60 boats with 9.9's and 15's for the city fishing guys and a little over 300 outboards boats in the yard try 30 years of that.

[DonziFreak]

When we roll, flip, our just wreck our race boats andf submerge the engines, we pull the plugs, drain the gas, wd-40 everything down, crank with fresh gas and a lot of oil, and usualy its good to go. But salt water...thats a diffrent story....the longer you wait, the worse the chances are that the bearings will corrode on the crank and just destroy the engine when you do get it running again.....flush it out like hell, if you can't work on it just yet, fill it up with diesel fuel and seal it up (diesel fuel keeps it from corroding)

Your best bet may be to flush it out, crank it up, then tear it apart to inspect the bearings :doh:

[zelatore]

Had it spinning over yesterday, but one added complication came up....the tech left the keys on the boat, and of course they had floated away. That meant hunting up a new lock set and installing it as well.

Motor should be running today - luckily I'm not there again until Tuesday. I've left instructions with the crew to run the thing for several hours then we'll see what's what and rebuild it if we have to.