I’ve always washed the boat, trailer and flushed the outboard every time … If I’m at the beach and using it every day for a week, can I get by not flushing the engine every day leaving it in the creek, tied to the dock, with out damage???
can ya get a water hose to it ??? most ob have a hose fitting on it to flush power head while still in water…
George McDonald US Navy Seabees,Retired, MAD, Charleston Chapter [http://www.militaryappreciationday.org
When you see “Old Glory” waving in the breeze, know that it is the dying breaths of our fallen hero’s that makes it wave.
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I ran a pair of 2001- 225 EFI. A number of times the boat sat in the water for a month or more at a time without being flushed.
Never had an issue with it.
I am fragile. Not like a flower. But like a bomb.
A few days to a week is OK as long as that is the exception and not the normal. If you flush every time normally and you skip one week while you don’t have access to fresh water you are good to go. Kinda like not brushing your teeth for a week…
Once metal is exposed to salt water, the salt works its way into the pore structure of any exposed metal and the corrosion begins and will never stop. Luckily, with modern outboards with modern alloys and paint treatments, that corrosion is quite slow. You can reduce it by flushing. But, even with religious flushing, the creeping death continues its assault. So, each flush is an incremental effort to slow the rot and it is significant and does help, a lot. Over the life of a motor, missing a few flushes won’t matter.
However, if you’re going to be at the beach for a week in warm weather (high water temps), I’d be more concerned about the bottom of the hull and foot unit if it can’t be raised out of the water. 'Made the mistake of putting my boat on my parent’s dock for a while in the Charleston area not far from the harbor. In a week, we had enough tiny barnacle growth to slow us down several miles an hour and make her very slow getting up on plane. They came off relatively easily with scotch brite type scrubbies. But, it took an hour or so of nasty scrubbing to get the hull smooth.
--------------------------- 17' Henry O Hornet w/ Johnson 88 spl 26' Palmer Scott project hull 14' Bentz-Craft w/ Yamaha 25
well said
www.teamcharlestonmarine.com IF I RESPOND IN ALL CAPS, ITS NOT ON PURPOSE, AND I AM NOT YELLING
If your running the boat you aint got nothing to worry about. Its when it sits for a while without being flushed or ran you start getting corrosion issues. I can tell ya right now any commercial guy that leaves his boat in the water aint freshwater flushing everytime.