Hello,
I was out on the Mississippi yesterday in my Lund Fish and Ski with a 70hp Merc outboard. I had to move over quite far to give room to a passing barge and got into some rocks at about 1/2 speed. Engine shut down on impact but fired right back up and ran fine (to the point where I had not thought it even hit the engine. Thought maybe it was a dead head to the hull). Ran for about 2 miles at various speeds until we reached an area to beach and check the damage.
Checked the motor and found it had chipped and bent the prop beyond repair. Also took off about 3/4 of the skeg. I did not have a replacement prop with (dumb, I know) so had to make the 3 mile run back with what I had.
When we got back on the water I had problems. I could get to about 1/3 speed without much problem. If I tried to take it beyond that point, I would lose forward momentum and the engine would bog down badly and often just sputter out. If I backed it back to 1/3 throttle it would "catch" again and run okay.
Question - Is it possible that as I tried to increase speed the prop was too difficult for the engine to turn and thus would die? Is it possible that the prop was slipping at higher speeds? Or have I done more major damage to the engine/linkage/???
A couple other notes - The prop drive shaft doesn't seem to be bent. I also discovered that the round "locking pin" the goes in front of the nut to hold the prop to the drive shaft had the two prongs on one side bent up.
My plan is to put a new prop on and replace the skeg to see what happens. However, money is tight and I don't really want to drop $200 or so for a new prop and skeg to find that the engine has a major problem that should have been obvious to me.
I was out on the Mississippi yesterday in my Lund Fish and Ski with a 70hp Merc outboard. I had to move over quite far to give room to a passing barge and got into some rocks at about 1/2 speed. Engine shut down on impact but fired right back up and ran fine (to the point where I had not thought it even hit the engine. Thought maybe it was a dead head to the hull). Ran for about 2 miles at various speeds until we reached an area to beach and check the damage.
Checked the motor and found it had chipped and bent the prop beyond repair. Also took off about 3/4 of the skeg. I did not have a replacement prop with (dumb, I know) so had to make the 3 mile run back with what I had.
When we got back on the water I had problems. I could get to about 1/3 speed without much problem. If I tried to take it beyond that point, I would lose forward momentum and the engine would bog down badly and often just sputter out. If I backed it back to 1/3 throttle it would "catch" again and run okay.
Question - Is it possible that as I tried to increase speed the prop was too difficult for the engine to turn and thus would die? Is it possible that the prop was slipping at higher speeds? Or have I done more major damage to the engine/linkage/???
A couple other notes - The prop drive shaft doesn't seem to be bent. I also discovered that the round "locking pin" the goes in front of the nut to hold the prop to the drive shaft had the two prongs on one side bent up.
My plan is to put a new prop on and replace the skeg to see what happens. However, money is tight and I don't really want to drop $200 or so for a new prop and skeg to find that the engine has a major problem that should have been obvious to me.
) hits a rock shelf 2 years ago with a Mariner 40hp going 30MPH. Motor kicked up and shut down instantly. What a noise 