Motor Up or Down while towing

[petiboy]

Hello folks,

Got a 23 ft Boat with a Yamaha 225 four stroke and was curious to how to position this motor. Manual says to keep engine down while towing but I only have around 1 foot from lower unit to pavement.

Engine is heavy and when I lock in in the up position it really puts a lot of stress on the transom and I would hate for those locking levers to break.
I thought about those transom savers but there is no where to attach it to the trailer.

So anyway how many postion there large motors in the down positon?
Thanks,

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Motor Up or Down while towing

with that long trailer and only 12 inches of clearance, i would find a way to put a transom saver on it.

 

[dingbat]

Re: Motor Up or Down while towing

I personally don't use anything other than the trailering bracket for support. In order to move both the trim cylinder and trailering bracket would have to fail at the same time. What are the odds of that?

For warm and fuzzes just tilt the motor up a bit and put a piece of 2X4 in between the motor and the tilt cylinder and lower the motor back down on the block of wood.

These work well too
http://www.m-ywedge.com/

 

[jtexas]

Re: Motor Up or Down while towing

You should realize that the trim cylinders won't hold the motor down. and the tilt cylinder is designed to leak down under stress. [What I'm refering to here is the emergency relief valve, it lets the motor kick up when you hit an underwater obstruction.] So the motor's shaking a bit and with every shake, the 2x4 slips a tiny bit. Few miles down the road it drops out and BANG! motor slams down. Probably won't do any damage. The first time.

Go down to bass pro or cabelas or whereever you buy your marine accessories, and take a look at the hardware in the package with the transom saver -- probably figure out a way to use it.

Whether it actually "saves the transom" or not -- you'll feel better with it secured back there.

 

[dingbat]

Re: Motor Up or Down while towing

You should realize that the trim cylinders won't hold the motor down. and the tilt cylinder is designed to leak down under stress. So the motor's shaking a bit and with every shake, the 2x4 slips a tiny bit. Few miles down the road it drops out and BANG! motor slams down. .

Ok, technically I missed used the terms trim and tilt but you got the idea.

I've never heard of a tilt cylinder designed to leak down. But even so you?re not going to "bounce" a #600 outboard around against the pressure of a tilt cylinder whether it leaks down or not. Even if you where to open the manual release valve to relieve the pressure off the tilt system it takes 2 or 3 big guys to even thing about lifting that motor back up on the tilt bracket.

This is straight from my manual.

Trailering bracket:

To engage bracket:

Tilt the motor fully using the tilt switch inside the boat or the trailering tilt switch

Pull down the trailering bracket. A detent will hold the bracket in place

Lower the motor until the trailering bracket locks into place in the stern brackets

To disengage bracket ? tilt the motor fully

Return the trailring bracket to its stowed poison

Lower the motor to the vertical position

Apparently Evinrude isn?t worried about a tilt cylinder "working loose" while trailering.

Yamaha recommends that you not use their motor support bracket when trailering. I know of a lot of guys that swear by the "wedge" and they trailer 10-15K miles a year with them.

 

[jtexas]

Re: Motor Up or Down while towing

When I said "designed to leak down", that's not exactly what I meant -- you know how, if you apply too much throttle with the motor tilted up, it'll come right on down to the trim cylinders.

And if you hit an underwater obstruction, the safety release valve will let it kick up.

 

[BillP]

Re: Motor Up or Down while towing

If your transom or anything else breaks from trailering without a transom saver they will break in the water with normal loading. Getting better clearance is a good reason to use transom saver though...But there is no reason you can't put a 2x4 under the bracket and pull the trim down on it to keep it there. My mariner has a built in pin to slide over and pull the motor down on with the power trim. A piece of wood would do the same thing.

I have no idea what the built in leak down deal is. None of my motor have ever leaked down unless the fluid was low or seals bad.

 

[Nandy]

Re: Motor Up or Down while towing

Make sure you secure the wood in case it does comes loose. Can you imagine that 2x4 bouncing in the road and hitting someone car/windshield?

 

[1976SRV190]

Re: Motor Up or Down while towing

Hello folks,

Got a 23 ft Boat with a Yamaha 225 four stroke and was curious to how to position this motor. Manual says to keep engine down while towing but I only have around 1 foot from lower unit to pavement.

Engine is heavy and when I lock in in the up position it really puts a lot of stress on the transom and I would hate for those locking levers to break.
I thought about those transom savers but there is no where to attach it to the trailer.

So anyway how many postion there large motors in the down positon?
Thanks,

DOWN for sure. It stresses the transom to tow in the up position with such a large heavy motor. a foot of clearence is fine, you won't ever hit stuff with a foot of clearence unless you off road with it down.....

 

[Dhadley]

Re: Motor Up or Down while towing

I run the motor down to the top of the trim rams. Then run the jackplate up until the skeg has more clearance than the rear of the trailer cross member.

 

[tmcalavy]

Re: Motor Up or Down while towing

Transom savers are cheaper than skegs, props or a complete lower unit.