trailering an i/o motor...lift? or not?

This_lil_fishy

This_lil_fishy

Master Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Jul 23, 2008
Messages
841
Re: trailering an i/o motor...lift? or not?

northernmerc said:
I often use the trailer button to raise it higher in shallow water and have never encountered a problem. Similarly, when starting the boat near shore, we often run it with the drive quite high. It makes no unusual noises and doesn't seem to have hurt anything. That's with a Mercruiser, but it could be different with other makes.
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My mercruiser manual states very clearly not to exceed 1200rpm in the trailer position....the one time I did exceed that I could very clearly hear the U-Joint working very hard. It was accidental, but I never do that anymore.

Ian
 
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northernmerc

Chief Petty Officer
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Apr 6, 2009
Messages
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Re: trailering an i/o motor...lift? or not?

This_lil_fishy said:
My mercruiser manual states very clearly not to exceed 1200rpm in the trailer position....the one time I did exceed that I could very clearly hear the U-Joint working very hard. It was accidental, but I never do that anymore.

Ian
Click to expand...

That makes sense. One would not want to rev the engine anyway with the lower unit raised; doing so just raises a lot of turbulence and doesn't accomplish much. 1200 rpms is enough to slowly move along until one can lower the motor in deeper water.
 
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df909

Petty Officer 1st Class
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Nov 28, 2009
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Re: trailering an i/o motor...lift? or not?

Tilting the drive up (trailer position) is not a great idea with the Merc's at RPM's higher than 1200 like everyone else said. If you find you have to power like this, I'd also worry about dirt/debris in the water intake and hitting the hull against something.

In other boats, such as the early Volvo's, you couldn't power with the drive tilted at all. The Merc's are handy since it makes boating a bit easier.
 
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PiratePast40

Lieutenant Commander
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Mar 21, 2009
Messages
1,734
Re: trailering an i/o motor...lift? or not?

+2 ^^^^ what he said^^^^^

If you look at the lift mechanism, it'll scare the heck out of you when you think of the outdrive bouncing on it going down the road. With the bracket, you're not stretching the bellows that much so it's really a non-issue.
 
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ChampionShip

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Mar 18, 2010
Messages
202
Re: trailering an i/o motor...lift? or not?

Lift up for clearance during transport- not many outdrives can negotiate leaving a driveway in the down position without hitting the skeg, store it in the down position to keep wear and tear on the bellows to a minimum and to let all the water drain out if it's cold.

-Champ
 
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