[622730]

I hope someone can help me on this. I took the boat out Monday for the first trip of the season and when I was coming in I hit the ramp and chipped the lower unit. I was in neutral and thought I had the motor tilted high enough but apparently not. It is a Merc I/O and I only took a nickel size chunk off of the bottom. Am I ok to run like this or do I have to get it fixed.

I Did catch a 32" striper so the trip wasn't all bad. Did not see anyone else catching anything for 3 hours but the reports all say everyone was catching flounder and bass like crazy????

 

[leakyrivot]

That's great to hear about the striper.. should be coming my way soon. As far as the outdrive - what is it with the I/O's anyway? I've seen that happen 5-10 times at the boat launch...

If the chip was taken out of the fin on the bottom (skeg) - that's no problem at all, those can actually be broken right off & only are a performance issue. They actually sell plastic skegs that slide over and bolt onto the damaged one for this reason.

Or a slightly better way, to have anything like that repaired, is to just find a shop in your area that does heli-arc welding. A friend of mine can put a whole new skeg on, from raw sheet metal, in about 20 minutes. I'd drain the lower unit before any repair is done though, to avoid burning the lube inside.

So, if it's just a nick, don't sweat it.. If you are leaking gear lube out of that "nick" - it's time for some welding.

Jon

 

[bassknuckles]

I agree with the other post I had a quarter size piece break off during trailering. It did not affect the ride at all. I would not sweat it.

 

[Blue Ayes]

I had a golf ball size "hole" on the very bottom of the lower unit of my old boat ran a full season like that no problems with getting on plane vibration or anything else