Many people know I needed towed in to the weigh-in at the MSC tournament a week ago. I thought I had blown the engine on my 250 HP Yamaha 4-stroke. It turns out I blew out the lower unit.
My boat remains in the water at one of my docks, pretty much all of the time. Prior to this misfortune, I had changed oil, filter, water pump, gear oil, fuel filters. spark plugs, etc. 31 hours before the ?incident?.
After we got it on the trailer, we found no gear oil in the lower unit. Further inspection revealed fishing line wrapped around the prop, ended up causing the prop shaft seal to fail, which led to the failure after losing all of the gear oil. The fishing line had melted, and was in a ?glob? behind the prop seal.
I would offer this insight to avoid a similar problem:
? As soon as you shut off the big engine, put the motor in gear, so the prop is not spinning.
? Do this if you are pulling boards or free lines, or ?spot locked?! The only time you might not need to do this is when double anchored, but, hey, just get in the habit. Shut the big motor off, put it in gear!
A new lower unit for my engine costs $7,000, plus labor to change it out. You can avoid this by following the advice above, or, if you suspect line may be wrapped around your prop shaft, get it on a trailer ASAP, and pull the prop and check the prop shaft and seal. If you see line running under the seal, replace it, the seal, not the line!
You don?t need to learn this lesson the ?hard way?, like I did.
Rick K
2310 Polar Bay Boat
Yamaha 250 4 Stroke