Re: How do you track hours on your outboard?
I don't keep track of anything, the amount of fuel I use over a years’ time makes little difference, it is what it is. A fuel filter doesn't plug up with time, it plugs up from junk in the fuel, might be 10 minutes or 10 years, changing it every year is just a conservative guess, I have never found anything in my filters other than clean fuel. My lower units get checked periodically, if the oil looks bad it gets changed, if not I leave it, no set amount time is used to determine it. Spark plugs get changed every few years and only when needed, not time based, and from my experience I have never needed to change them after one year. Water pumps get changed, but probably not as often as recommended by some, but I monitor them closely. There is nothing about 2 stroke maintenance that is really time related, if its mechanically sound and running well, then, well, there’s not much to do. If the compression gets low and the motor is worn out, knowing the hours means little.
I don't maintain my motors for the next guy, they get maintained so I can run them 10 hours a day, day after day when fishing and not wonder if I will get back to the launch. There is no off season for me, they get run all year. Its amazing how many years you can get out of an outboard if you just pay attention to its actual needs. The cost of maintenance on a two stroke is almost nothing if you change stuff when needed after inspecting it rather than changing it because of hours used or time passed.
After saying that there is nothing wrong with an hour meter, I put one on my mower just to see how long I run it per season. Actually bought it for the tach feature to put on my boat (jet boat tach broke), but stuck it on the mower to see how it worked the first day and never took it off. I think it was $11.00 on eBay.
Some people like to track all this stuff, if that’s the case, great, I like to fish and have no interest in what my fuel cost, or hours on my motors were last year. In fact it could be dangerous if my wife found the log book and saw what I spent.
