How do you flush your tender outboard or not?

[Big Andy]

I thank you all for taking the time to reply. I will look into aquiring an old ball fender thanks Vyv, that does seem to fit what I want. I could just empty my water tanks for that then fill with fresh for the next trip. I didn't realise you could just flush after the end of each cruise I thought it needed doing after each use. I've only had a trailer fishing boat before and alway gave a thorough flushing at the end of each day.

 

[Venus1]

OK Venus1 .... I've taken you at your word and this is the result....

If this doesn't work, you owe me a fender as that one is not going to be very airtight. :ambivalence:

Richard

Nice cutting job! You've earned that beer.
I should have known that this excellent idea originated from Mr Cox.
I do hope your new flushing widget works as planned.
Cheers

 

[vyv_cox]

OK Venus1 .... I've taken you at your word and this is the result, just finished:

The walls are thicker than I expected and not so easy to cut. I started with a Stanley knife but decided that I would probably injure myself so tried a bread knife from the galley which was no good and then tried a wood saw which seemed to work.

Now I need to check whether it fits over the outboard leg but, after all that cutting, I've retreated to the cockpit with a beer.

If this doesn't work, you owe me a fender as that one is not going to be very airtight. :ambivalence:

Richard

Note the comment about the rope holes on my website page. Drilling holes just big enough for the rope caused the material to tear under load. I used a hole cutter about 20 mm in diameter to remove the tears and enlarge the attachment point, which has worked well. However, the main weight of water is taken by a rope through the original fender eye at the bottom.

 

[LadyInBed]

Note the comment about the rope holes on my website page. Drilling holes just big enough for the rope caused the material to tear under load. I used a hole cutter about 20 mm in diameter to remove the tears and enlarge the attachment point, which has worked well. However, the main weight of water is taken by a rope through the original fender eye at the bottom.

Maybe no need for holes at the top, just use a V of rope from the bottom with half hitch's near the fender top to stabilize it?

 

[steve66]

Take the prop off...stick it in a bucket

 

[vyv_cox]

Maybe no need for holes at the top, just use a V of rope from the bottom with half hitch's near the fender top to stabilize it?

Might depend on the fender wall thickness but if mine is not attached firmly at the top it simply falls off the outboard leg. The weight of water in the fender is quite considerable. Also, half hitches would presumably close the top off, whereas as my pictures show I keep flushing with a hose pipe to remove as much salt as possible.

 

[TQA]

If you have neighbours you wish to annoy! There can be a great deal of exhaust noise if the water level is low and as captainboo says sometimes the water inlet is not covered. Even without the prop rotating there is a lot of turbulence that will quickly empty a bucket.

I have used the bucket tied to the engine while it is mounted on the stern rail on a variety of engines, from 2hp to 18hp. Any water loss has been minimal except when revving the 18.

 

[RichardS]

Take the prop off...stick it in a bucket

I tried that with my Suzuki the first time but an ordinary bucket just wasn't deep enough to cover the water intakes. Taking the prop off didn't help because the engine is still supported on that lower depth protector thing which extends below the prop.

Richard

 

[steve66]

Skeg

 

[RichardS]

Skeg

OK ..... but if the skeg extends below the prop, how does taking the prop off help?

Richard

 

[steve66]

If you leave the prop on you will lose the water in a couple of seconds

 

[RichardS]

If you leave the prop on you will lose the water in a couple of seconds

OK ... I can see I'm flogging a dead horse here ..... so I'll assume that the answer is that using a bucket will probably not provide enough depth of water for most outboards and that removing the prop, if you have no neutral gear, is not going to help you in the slightest.

Richard

 

[steve66]

It depends on the size of your bucket. It works for me.

 

[VicS]

OK ... I can see I'm flogging a dead horse here ..... so I'll assume that the answer is that using a bucket will probably not provide enough depth of water for most outboards and that removing the prop, if you have no neutral gear, is not going to help you in the slightest.

Richard

Not need to flog the horse. You just have to learn to accept that occasionally other people may be right.

IF the bucket is deep enough for the water cover the AV plate/ immerse the water pump and large enough in diameter to accommodate the unit, with prop removed if necessary, then it is feasible to use a bucket.

There is no way my Evinrude will fit in a bucket because the AV plate is bigger than the diameter of "ordinary " buckets, even a builder's bucket although I think an ordinary bucket would be just about deep enough

My Seagull Featherweight will, I think, fit in an an ordinary bucket but as it has a fixed drive the prop would have to be removed or there won't be much water left after a couple of seconds or so.
I'd think the same will be true for other small outboards

The 40+ might fit in a bucket with the prop removed but I'm not going to get it out of its cobwebbed rat infested corner to try it!

 

[vyv_cox]

I think people are missing the point. Of course a bucket will work but not all of us want to carry a large bucket around just to flush the outboard occasionally. The beauty of using an old fender is two-fold: firstly it is a use for something that would otherwise be thrown away and secondly it can be rolled up or laid flat, saving a large volume of stowage.

 

[VicS]

I think people are missing the point. Of course a bucket will work but not all of us want to carry a large bucket around just to flush the outboard occasionally. The beauty of using an old fender is two-fold: firstly it is a use for something that would otherwise be thrown away and secondly it can be rolled up or laid flat, saving a large volume of stowage.

I have always carried a couple of buckets. the shorter most used mooring warps live in one ......... the other one .... well it comes in handy during the night!

Never used either for flushing the outboard though

 

[dewinowens]

Lots of interesting comments on this post! I have a very lightly used 10-year old Honda outboard on my boat which I have always flushed by running it in a barrel at home straight after use, running the carburettor dry at the same time. However, when I pulled out the thermostat to inspect the cooling water passages this year, I was surprised by the amount of muck that had accumulated. It looked like a mixture of salt crystals and lime scale and although I have not yet had cooling problems I decided it was time to try to get things a bit cleaner. The first problem ( I now realise) is that 10 minutes at a fast idle in a barrel probably does not get the engine hot enough to open the thermostat so all the fresh water does is circulate through the bypass without going near the passages where the deposits actually accumulate. So, step 1 was a 30 minute fresh water flush using a garden hose connected to the flush port, as per the Honda instructions, with the engine off. The port does not need the thermostat to be open to flush the passages in the head and the water seemed to shift quite a lot of the crystalline deposits. I decided that step 2 needed to be an acid flush to dissolve the lime scale and was offered a breathtakingly expensive bottle of diluted hydrochloride acid and 'flushing kit' at the chandlers. I substituted toilet lime scale remover, which turns out to have exactly the same HCl concentration as the 'marine' product, and a £7.99 submersible 12V fuel transfer pump + plastic box for the flushing kit. I connected the pump to the flush port and recirculated the lime scale remover using the plastic box as a reservoir under the engine at 1:2 dilution for 10 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of fresh water from the hose, followed by rinse with Salt Terminator which apparently contains a corrosion inhibitor (Sodium Nitrite) and detergent. At the end of all that I had an impressive amount of sediment in the acid and initial water rinse leaving cooling passages that are almost clear of muck.
In future, I think I'll give up on the barrel and use the flushing port after each use and possibly the limescale remover every few seasons. Overkill? My boat has a single engine, and the only other source of propulsion is me and a pair of oars so I'd rather keep the engine running if I can!
For rinsing the engine afloat, if your engine has a flush port, a cheap submersible 12V pump and a length of hose would allow fairly small volume of fresh water to be recirculated from a cut off fender or bucket, as others have suggested, to give a decent flush with no need to run the engine.

 

[RichardS]

Not need to flog the horse. You just have to learn to accept that occasionally other people may be right.

Lol.

So, pray tell us all what not right with "so I'll assume that the answer is that using a bucket will probably not provide enough depth of water for most outboards and that removing the prop, if you have no neutral gear, is not going to help you in the slightest."

Richard

 

[vyv_cox]

I have always carried a couple of buckets. the shorter most used mooring warps live in one ......... the other one .... well it comes in handy during the night!

Never used either for flushing the outboard though

In Greece we carry three buckets, two reserved for laundry duties and kept reasonably clean, the other a 'dirty' one for various duties. None of them comes anywhere near tall enough to flush the outboard, for which the cut-off 8 inch fender shown in my link is just right. https://coxengineering.sharepoint.com/Pages/Outboardflush.aspx

 

[Sailingsaves]

Quote Originally Posted by VicS
Not need to flog the horse. You just have to learn to accept that occasionally other people may be right.

Lol.

So, pray tell us all what not right with "so I'll assume that the answer is that using a bucket will probably not provide enough depth of water for most outboards and that removing the prop, if you have no neutral gear, is not going to help you in the slightest."

Richard

Some people like to flog dead horses, have the last word, think they are correct when they are not, do not like to be told the thingy-m'jig is a skeg and perhaps simply enjoy to argue and take a topic off thread. Of course learning to accept that occasionally other people may be right would be useful...



Fender idea is BRILLIANT.
I always flushed my 2.5hp after every use. In a tall bucket - they come in various sizes you see - 1995 model and looks mint runs beautifully and just took me 5 nautical miles after being laid up for 3 years. Will certainly be looking into finding a fender like receptacle now though (maybe an old wellie boot because I don't want to cut a good fender - I take my prop off because it is easy to do so and stops wasting water)

At end of season I used to flush with some dilute antifreeze (for its corrosion inhibitive properties). I'm sure those on here who are actually more knowledgeable than I am (e.g. vyv_cox and VicS to name but two) would know if I was correct in using antifreeze?

I would like to give the old thing a flush through (rather than take the head off - I learned not to fix what isn't broken after breaking things that weren't broken) and had not heard of the use of brick cleaner before, so will ponder upon the idea.

Thanks for some useful, practical info and a good laugh too.