Outboards #1 PROBLEM!

everyone that has ever owned a boat knows that boats are basically nothing but one big problem but we can't live without them so we just learn how to deal with each issue as they come up this includes the boat's engine there's just something about taking a combustion engine attaching it to a drive shaft going into a lower unit that's submerged in the water pulling water up through it and then continuing to force that water through the engine and on top of that feeding it salty air to breathe all day they just don't seem to like that very much and with that being said though that means that there are almost endless amounts of problems that an outboard engine can have but after fixing outboards for a living for all these years we have the statistics to allow us to compile a list on what the top five problems that delay a boating trip are that we see outwards having regularly to share with you today as well as a little trick to each one of these issues that you can do quickly to give you the ability to possibly save the day let's get started with number five being an issue with the engine shifting or the lower unit so many times we'll get a boat in that has a hard shifting or a no shifting issue which in the worst case scenario either the lower unit has blown up or the shift shaft has broken somewhere in the midsection but in the best case scenario there is just something blocking the shift mechanism or the cable is out of adjustment now these systems are pretty easy to diagnose all you have to do is get to where the shift cable is attached to the engine shifting mechanism and you will be able to tell the difference between the shift and throttle because the throttle cable will generally be above the shifting cable and it will be on more of a lever than in a track now you can remove the clip or nut that is holding the cable on [Music] then just pull the cable off the shifting mechanism and you can now turn your engine on and manually shift the engine by moving the shifting knob either forward or backwards if your problem goes away you know something's up with the cable if it doesn't then you know you've got to look a little further into this issue these days with electronic shifting actuators and fly-by-wire controls though the mechanisms look a little bit different but the same test still applies pull out the bolt and manually shift the engine you can also get back to the dock if your cables fail while out on the water just by putting the engine in gear and driving home just remember to approach the dock slowly because you'll have to manually take the engine out of gear again once you get there number four issues with the engine's oiling system though two strokes are becoming less and less prominent in the marine industry there are still many out there that are still running strong probably because people are implementing the tactics from our video on how you can make your two stroke last longer but in any case an issue with the oil system will down a boat quickly and the easiest way to diagnose an issue with the oiling system is to make sure that there is oil in the tanks both the tank on the engine and the tank that is usually in the bilge for larger outboards as long as you've got oil in the tanks the general issue is going to be with the floats that go in the oil tanks that let the engine know that they have oil depending on what kind of engine you have will determine on how you test your system on a side note we've got detailed videos for each one of these issues so you'll want to go down in the description and watch those other videos after this one for more information about each one of these problems on a four stroke the only main oil system problem that we see is either low oil in the engine [Music] or too much oil in the engine or sometimes people will not change their oil filters for so long that it actually restricts the oil pump and they lose oil pressure which you can find your oil pressure right on your gauge depending on what year and brand of engine you have number three the rough running engine that is not getting to fire on all cylinders and 75 percent of the time this is because the spark plugs have been run for too long whether you got a two-stroke that likes to foul out plugs or you've got a four-stroke that has expensive spark plugs and they just haven't been changed for a few years many times we get onto a boat and they're just running terribly or they won't even start at all and all we do is pull out the spark plugs and take a look if the plugs are black and rusty and the tips look just burned out it's time to make sure that all the cylinders are firing and then put some new plugs in and voila the day has been saved number two the batteries oh nothing runs the day like a dead or low dying battery mainly because you don't know if the batteries just died or if there is another issue of something draining the battery or the engine not even charging the battery for that matter dead batteries and a charging issue have made it to number two on our list mainly because this is the number two issue that we have to deal with on a weekly basis and there are a couple of things that will let you know if your battery is about to die and if your engine is charging the battery once you've got it running now this will depend on what size engine and what kind of gauges you have but on most boats with engines from the past 20 years will have a gauge that will show you how many volts the engine is putting out if the engine is turning over really slow and you don't see the rpm on the tachometer go above say 4 to 500 rpm then you can almost bet that the battery is almost dead so if you can still start the engine though take a look at the volts on the gauge if you see those volts below 12 then that engine is not charging the battery if you see them from 12 to 14 volts then you know the engine is charging something else to look at is to just put the engine in neutral and rev the engine up to see if the volts rise with the engine's rpm if they do the engine is charging and it's either time to change out the battery or see if you've got some dirty connections going to the battery like at the battery switch since we have a step-by-step tutorial on how to do this we won't cover that here instead we'll move on to an outboard's number one problem i'm sure a lot of you have already guessed it but if you haven't take a moment to take a guess and while you're guessing you'll want to make sure you've hit that subscribe button as well that way you can help us get to that hundred thousand subscriber mark by the end of the year and click that like button too just to let youtube know that this video is helpful so that they will share with other people and if you guessed fuel then you must already either be a subscriber or an avid boater because yes the number one issue we deal with is fuel whether that be poor fuel quality or water in the fuel from a faulty fuel tanks loose connections rusty fuel filters or a busted primer bulb there are so many things that go wrong with the fuel delivery system in a boat to the poor quality that fuel has gotten to over the years we'll deal with a fuel issue on a boat multiple times a week and this isn't the hardest issue to deal with either all you need is a filter wrench to get your water separator off and a clear plastic water bottle to dump the fuel into this will give you a good clean look at the quality of fuel that you have or if you have any fuel getting to the engine at all for that matter which is why you'll want to click on this video here where we show you the quickest way to diagnose your fuel system if you ever have to deal with this issue being our number one issue it's likely you will so you want to watch that video check us out at borniganboating.com shop for our brand new technicians tuesday fishing shirts thanks for hanging out with us now hit that subscribe button and we'll see you next week

Channel: Born Again Boating

Views: 852,844

Rating: 4.9262338 out of 5

Keywords: How-To, boats, boating, boat, outboard, engine, motor, problem, issue, troubleshooting, diagnose, mercury, honda, evinrude, johnson, suzuki, tohatsu, yamaha, #1, issues, broken, fix, help, born again boating

Id: 9DXgOLl5Jbs

Length: 9min 0sec (540 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 08 2020