This morning was my annual change the oil day, which occurs around the first week of June. It began when we purchased our first home in 1992. Back then all I had was a gas powered lawn mower, and now it includes the snow blower and the little Honda outboard. This year I also changed the lower unit oil which is good for a couple of seasons. Not really exciting or strictly sailing related, but I recently had a discussion with a friend about boat maintenance and it reminded me that I should change the oil. My friend has a large power boat with an equally large outboard engine and large expenses.
Apparently he had to replace his old engine (about 15 years old) due to corrosion issues (water intake?) and it would coast him a small fortune to fix. He said he did flush it with fresh water after every use but the parts corroded anyway and replacement was not cost effective. I think he also wanted a bigger engine than the one he had (new one is 200 HP). It seems so funny that sailors get around with their tiny (relatively) little engines. And with the popularity of foiling, some sailboat designs are reaching speeds once the sole domain of power boats.
I do yearly engine and gear oil changes, as well as ultrasonic carb cleaning, usually in the Spring (done a couple months ago). However, the only small gas engines I have are the Nissan 6 and the Honda 2. The mower is cordless electric, as are edger, weedwhacker, and a small chainsaw. Luckily no snowblower required here! ;D
Agreed tho that we small boat sailors have it pretty easy (read inexpensive).
The thing I'm curious about re: your buddy, is how often did he replace his zincs? That corrosion issue he had might have been due to used up zincs. I find that I am replacing them about once every two years on my outboards.
I also do all the oil changes on small engines at my house. I recently volunteered to help a sailing friend with a Honda 2 hp. What I always considered a perfect little engine is a complete screw up by Honda regarding oil changes. I scanned the manual and the first mentioned item in the oil change section is "it is messy"! boy is that an understatement.
Well it finally has finished dripping out in various places and I again think its a good engine.
Doing your own maintenance sometimes allows us to see items to correct as preventive maintenance.
The Honda 2 has a certain way you can tilt and rotate the motor so that the dripping/mess can be kept to a minimum, but it's still a messy job. On both my outboards, I gave up on using the drain plugs and use a 12V pump to remove the old oil through the fill tube. It might not remove every drop, but it gets most of it.
Good idea about using the fill tube. The problem I see is that it has a bend to it, so getting the tube to the bottom of the oil sump might be a bit difficult. However, a few milliliters of oil left at the bottom will not make much difference anyway.
Changing the oil on the Honda is a MESSY job. MY wife (or whoever is unlucky enough to be at home) holds the engine tilted over a pan while I struggle to remove the drain plug/screw. Screw drops into the pan along with most of the oil. The remainder of the oil is on my hands, or dribbles down the side of the handle and engine. The only plus is that my hands are very soft and smooth afterwards ;D
Yes, you need to wiggle the pickup tube a lot to get it all the way to the lowest point. The tube on this particular pump is fairly narrow, but just stiff enough that it'll find its way without curling on itself. I also tilt the motor slightly upwards so the fill tube is higher than the crankcase. This assures that any oil in the area of the oil level sight glass has also drained to the lowest point.
If you are using the drain plug, it really helps to have the motor on a motor stand to be able to get the optimum tilt/rotate angle to prevent oil from running down the handle, etc. Ask me how I know ... >:(
Hey Brian, you should market used oil under some fancy name and call it a skin care product! ;D
Here's a link to the pump I use:
https://www.amazon.com/Amarine-Made-Extractor-Scavenge-Transfer/dp/B082TNCJP8/ref=dp_prsubs_hxwEES_sspa_dk_detail_d_sccl_1/138-7844937-7039369?pd_rd_w=z1KRf&content-id=amzn1.sym.9d6f187b-91f2-43a2-ba40-e07018f92802&pf_rd_p=9d6f187b-91f2-43a2-ba40-e07018f92802&pf_rd_r=00ZZCCCF9ZQSXCMMAP49&pd_rd_wg=kH5EX&pd_rd_r=ae87abda-7687-4e88-9839-42728c017790&pd_rd_i=B082TNCJP8&ie=UTF8&sloctc=1&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9kZXRhaWxfYXRmX2JsZW5kZWQ&th=1
You three are much more disciplined about oil changes on small engines than I am. But it does remind me that the snowblower is due and I should take care of it before I forget.
The only other small gas engine I have is the 3.5 HP Nissan I picked up for my boat to use a during a trip that never materialized. The previous owner had done the lower unit and oil change not long before I bought it so I haven't done that yet. Didn't even get around to starting it last year so I probably should do that too.
I have to admit to feeling kind of smug about that stuff since I use an electric trolling motor for my boat most of the time and there's not much maintenance stuff to worry about. It just works... or so I thought until last week.
Was motoring from the buoy to the dock and the motor seemed to be working very hard, even though I was barely moving. Previously I had chalked that up to this being a much bigger boat but clearly something wasn't right.
Eventually it just quit altogether. Fortunately I was upwind from the dock so was able to drift the rest of the way.
Even luckier was that I was able find pretty much the same model on Facebook Marketplace and was back in business that same evening.
It was not hard to figure out what the problem was with the motor that quit. I removed one bolt from the lower unit, which is where the motor is housed, and a steady stream of rust colored water came out.
Not an unusual problem as it turns out and usually repairable with a $35 lower unit rebuild kit that has new seals, brushes, and bearings. So I cleaned everything up and ordered the kit.
Those motors are dead simple. I don't know if you had those old Aurora slot cars when you were kids like we did but the motors in those cars would come completely apart. Replacing the tiny brushes was done regularly and we had a spare parts box with magnets, gears, brushes, armatures, pickups, etc.
Anyway, apart from everything being a whole lot bigger, the trolling motor motors are even simpler. Aside from the parts I mentioned in the rebuild kit, there's not much more to them, other than a giant armature and big magnets. No gears. Prop is mounted right on the armature shaft.
But while waiting for the rebuild kit, my *new* motor also quit working! Just wouldn't turn on. That turned out to be the control board and those are bit more expensive. So just to have one working motor, I stole the control board from the one with the leaking lower unit.
And I ended up ordering the control board since I'd already invested in the rebuild kit.
Now I have two working motors and will probably sell one after using them both for a couple of weeks to make sure they're OK.
But now I'm left wondering if I should be periodically be rebuilding those lower units or would doing so potentially lead to a leak when there wasn't one to start with?
I subscribe to a couple of sailing magazines and noticed electric motor and e-propulsion adds and articles are not as prevalent as they were a couple of years ago. Certainly electric propulsion has some great advantages, but despite the noise and maintenance required, a gallon of gas will get you a lot further, than a fully charged battery. There are times when I've been five miles out, wind dies or rain clouds move in, adverse current, and I can turn up the throttle with confidence that a liter of gas will get me back to the ramp (plus some).
Tom, I ran a pretty standard Minn-Kota trolling motor on my DS for the first 9 years I had her. That was fine for the local inland lakes in FL, but when I started doing mostly coastal cruising, it quickly became apparent that the troller wasn't going to be up to the task, and that's when I bought the Honda 2. I never "dissected" the Minn-Kota per se, but over time I did have to replace wear items such as the friction lock, etc. And at some point, I did replace the stock prop with a Kipawa one.
Brian, I have to agree that when it comes to available power vs. quiet simplicity, even the latest electric motor designs still can't match a gas outboard for range.
Quote from: Brian N. on Jun 12, 2026, 01:14 PMI subscribe to a couple of sailing magazines and noticed electric motor and e-propulsion adds and articles are not as prevalent as they were a couple of years ago.
Due to my browsing habits I'm sure, I'm taunted with ePropulsion and other electric motor adds constantly. Would love one, but given the cost, I'll be sticking with trolling motors for the foreseeable future.
I might upgrade to a 24 volt model next year though. There are some compact and relatively inexpensive 24 volt LifePo4 batteries now and solar panels are also getting pretty cheap.