experience with Lehr Motor

Joined
Mar 30, 2008
Messages
14
I bought a 5hp long shaft for our sailing club, So far they have put 80 hours on it.
A couple of small niggling problems the factory fixed , the Kill switch died, Lehr supplied a new one.
The defective switch had never been tightened properly and had fallen apart ( Qa Problem?) the new one now has 20 hours on it no problem

A mixture drifting problem was traced to the screw thread on the tapered needle in the carb being too slack. factory suggested a drop of Loctite, and told me if that did not work they would send me a new carb slide assembly.
The first clue that this is going on , is that the motor will not idle properly.
Other than that it works fine , starts every time, and as the gasoline motors wear out or get messed up by the gasohol, I will replace them with Propane motors.
Brian Evans.
 

ciscokidd

Petty Officer 2nd Class
Joined
Aug 22, 2012
Messages
145
Re: experience with Lehr Motor

I saw these at the boat show and was looking at their 2.5hp as a kicker for my boat, great idea and for the convenience of the 1lb bottles I would strongly and will consider one
 
Joined
Mar 30, 2008
Messages
14
Following up on my experience with the Lehr 5hp motors. this is now two years later. After I had run one motor for about a year with no problems other than the niggles with the kill switch and the mixture. we bought 3 more. The first motor ( the original.) ran about 700 hours then started having erratic starting problems. this was traced to overheating of the motor. we have a very kelp prone area and it is possible to get a kelp leaf wrapped around the lower strut cutting off the cooling water, the engine just died, the offender saw the kelp leaf wrapped around the strut , took it off, and restarted the motor, however the damage had been done , it was never the same after that. I finally took it back to Lehr for evaluation, they offered me a refurbished motor in trade which we took, they said the motor I took in was beyond repair. I now have another casualty one of the 3 motors we bought has died at 448 hours total time with a thrown connecting rod, I am stripping that motor down now to find the cause, I will post here when I get the results. It should be noted that I am chief of maintenance for a sailing club and have 16 boats to look after, 4 of these boats are now fitted with the 5hp Lehr motors, and the members will play musical boats to get the propane powered motors , because they are much easier to start than the gasoline powered motors.
 

GA_Boater

Honorary Moderator Emeritus
Joined
May 24, 2011
Messages
49,038
A good follow-up report, Brian. Thanks.

How do the Lehrs compare maintenance-wise against the gasoline motors, barring kelp and ease of starting?
 

Fleetwin

Lieutenant Junior Grade
Joined
Nov 23, 2011
Messages
1,141
It sounds like your experience has been very good. Most outboards, especially little ones, never see those kinds of hours. Not to mention you have a bunch of "Blow Boaters" running them.:rolleyes:

Thanks for sharing.
 
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