TOPIC: on the water at last.

ok went and bought 200.00 in life jackets rope a seat cushion 35.00 and other things to get the boat on the water 98.00 in non ethanol gas 20.00 in 2 stroke oil 10.00 in additives and 20.00 in drinks and crackers. put it in about 10.00 Saturday and first thing there were a lot of tree limbs Logs bushes sticks all kind of debris from up river we are in West Point now. so we tried to steer clear and it was getting harder and harder so we stopped next to a beach for a few minutes. pushed off and trimmed the motor a little and started back the motor would not pick up power. revved the engine and it felt like the gears were slipping but at low speed we could putt along but trying to come up in speed it wasn't really surging but like your trimming the motor in and out of the water. thought of mud i picked up when we stopped but we didn't churn up any silt. limped back loaded the boat and saw the front of the foot all chipped up paint was chipped and the prop had scratch marks on it. the debris was bad ,several other boats came back in with us. now i am worried about what i might have done while in the debris field. i talked to Joe so i am looking at several things
but that's not what i wanted my first trip out to be. note we were doing good for awhile when we first started out then i kept feeling objects hitting the bottom of the boat and now probably the foot and prop. i went online and read articles about the river rising and floating all the dead stuff down stream and dumping into the lake reports of several lower units tore up and people wondering if insurance is going to pay. well ill find out whats wrong and eventually fix it and try again.

billy

How old is the prop? You may have a bad hub in your prop. They work just fine at slow speeds but when you throttle up they slip. The motor revs up but you go no faster. Just a thought.

Good thought to check. It happened to my old prop and I just had the prop shop put a new hub in. Good luck getting your issues solved and sorry about your experience. The bright side is you got back safely!

the prop was new only a few hours on it but with all the stuff in the lake i could have spun the hub.

one thing you can do to check the hub is to put a mark on the nut and the prop that align. get it back on the water and throttle up until you think it slips. stop and check if the marks are still aligned. if not. spun hub.

Though possible, I have never had a hub spin on a new prop. All of mine have the old rubber hubs as I don’t have that new style. When mine spun, it pegged the rpm’s and only got traction at a very slow speed. Good luck in all of your investigations. Tomahawk has an excellent idea to check the prop.

this has a rubber insert around the core. i have tried by hand but i cant turn it. it does muddle along at low speed but just like a trans slipping on low fluid at higher speeds.

if it is spun prop it will get progressively worse. soon you will be able to turn it by hand.

I couldn’t turn mine by hand when it was spun and you couldn’t really see rolled rubber like I could on other props. It was still spun... my motor likely has more torque than my arm with a freshly repaired rotator cuff. Me and my prop needed some maintenance attention. Both should be good now. One only took a few days and was way cheaper than the repair that has taken 6 months to come around. I am sure you can guess which. Do you have a friend that would allow you to test another prop that is even similar in size to confirm everything is good so you can confidently know if that prop needs rehubbed? I know someone who bought an I/O the owner said the lower unit was shot. He took it to a shop and they found the newer style prop inner hub was shot. That system was not expensive to fix. They went back to owner and they said oh well... live and learn and they were ok with the sale and ready to move on.

good article

Joe said the hub wasn't bad to replace so im going to take the prop off and test the motor to make sure it isnt trash in the carbs. i hope i havent bent my drive shaft, it was vibrating but again it could be the hub. i will try a few things and get back. thanks for all the help and suggestions .
Billy