Sorry for the lack of technical terms..<br /><br />Had an incident last weekend, the lobster traps are now in the water and I had a run-in with a bouy rope...<br />It's a 14' boat so I don't stray too far into open water....where I normally travel is now pulluted with lobster traps, and some are in as little as 10' of water, but they all have about 40' of rope on them. <br />There was avery light breeze blowing off shore, and I gave a bouy a good 30' of room, but realized too late that it was rigged with floating rope. The light breeze was enough to position the bouy straight out from the shore, but not enough breeze to pull the rope tight. Combine that with what looked to be floating nylon rope...and well, you have the equivalent of a 30' brick wall directly in your path, except you can't see it when the sun's in front of you. <br />Anyways, stupid move on my part, but us newbies learn lessons the hard way.<br />Wham bam, busted motor m'am.<br />The rope caught on the leg and brought the boat to a halt, very quickly. But not before the release (not working properly I'd say) finally let go and let the motor flip up. <br />The rope never tangled or anything, so I gave the motor a quick once-over and dropped it back into the water.<br />I also made sure that the rope wasn't cut or damaged so buddy wouldn't lose his trap...not his fault, right?<br />I started out slow and the steering was 'not right' and it pulled hard to the right when applying any power.<br />I idled to shore and found that the shaft where the motor pivots left and right was broken.<br /><br />I'll try to explain.....(I was looking for the owners manual to scan a pic, but can't locate it right now..1am, sorry)<br /><br />On the part of the leg that faces the transom, there is a tube with bushings in it. That part of the tube doesn't move when the motor is steered left and right. The tube that fits inside the outer tube is what's broken. It's broken clean off, about 1/4" above the top of the 'outer tube'. <br />I can grab the top part of the motor and it will rock back and forth..it's still being held on by the bottom part of this tube. That's the reason the steering felt not-right, and the pull to one side. The motor would 'lean' a bit when any power was applied.<br />Anyways, I idled back to my friend's place where I anchor (a 2.5 hour trip at idle...) and because of my work schedule and the tides, I cannot get the boat out of the water until next weekend. The bay he lives on is very shallow, and if it's not high tide, you have about 60' of mud flats to wade across to get to the boats. Otherwise I'd have brought the motor home and started disassembling.<br />If I can find a blow-up of the tube I'm talking about, maybe I can find a part and replace it without wasting another week. He has a service manual that covers his 18 and my 20, but nowhere in it is there a breakdown of that area of the motor. It seems that they show an exploded view of the lower unit about 10 times, though...go figure.<br /><br />I don't have an Evinrude dealer in my city, either....so it's hard to go and check out if they have any scrapped motors that I could get parts from...at least if I could put a name to this thing, he could check for me and see what he has. Any chance at all that this piece would be still available new?<br /><br />Can anybody help....and maybe save me a week of down time?<br />Even if I can find out what to call this darn inner tube, so I can call the dealer and get a new or used one..the dealer's out of town, so I'd like to be sure we're both talking about the same part...<br /><br />Anybody have a Rude graveyard? Or maybe a good 40hp that they're selling cheap? 
<br />1975 20HP <br />I'm going to say short shaft...anyways it fits a 15" transom. I know it's not the long shaft model, but I don't know if short-shaft, or regular-shaft is the proper term.<br /><br />Hey, I'm learning <br /><br />One thing I've learned is to stay a lot further than 30' away from a lobster trap bouy. <br /><br />I'm making light of the fact that I screwed up, and it could have been a lot more serious had one of the kids been standing up when the rope fetched up, but that's why I make sure their butts are in the seats. I learned my lesson and will be much more careful in the future.
<br />1975 20HP <br />I'm going to say short shaft...anyways it fits a 15" transom. I know it's not the long shaft model, but I don't know if short-shaft, or regular-shaft is the proper term.<br /><br />Hey, I'm learning <br /><br />One thing I've learned is to stay a lot further than 30' away from a lobster trap bouy. <br /><br />I'm making light of the fact that I screwed up, and it could have been a lot more serious had one of the kids been standing up when the rope fetched up, but that's why I make sure their butts are in the seats. I learned my lesson and will be much more careful in the future.