Submerged Engine

[Sea Rider]

A friend of mine flipped his rib with a 2 stroke 18 HP attched on transom while towing it behind a sailboat, This happened off coast on clear sea water, don't know for how long the engine was submerged. When the engine was taken back to terra firme hours latter had both plugs removed and flushed with fuel/oil mixture.

Don't know if carb was taken apart and disassembled, friend tells me that managed to start back engine, Question ; Asume electric components under flywheel were not rinsed with fresh water at all. Was wondering if will be ok to flush them with a hose watering them through upper side of timing plate and then drying with compressed air ? Or better is removing flywheeel and rinse/clean manually all electric components.

Squirting mixture through carb while engine is off is not same as removing carb and fuel manifold to have better access to interior components to provide a proper interior flush.. Was wondering if engine is already back to life to squirt an overdose of power tuner as to clean whatever sea water was left inside crank case, will this procedure work ?

Dislike removing manifold as there are gaskets involved that might break into pieces if removed and don't have those gaskets at hand to seal back manifold.

In the short time period, would you say that already all interior bearings are compromised due to salt water intrussion and consequent latter oxidation and rust and that engine could be jammed any time soon while in use ? Tomarrow will have a look...

Happy Boating

 

[MTboatguy]

I would do like we used to do in the old days with cars that had points distributors and spray the heck out of everything with WD-40, which is a water displacement oil, normally that will push the water out of those little spaces. I seriously doubt the bearings are damaged at this point in time, but if left to sit for a long time, you will have corrosion, so it is best to get something going sooner than later to clean things up. Fortunately based on what you have posted, it does not sound like the motor was running when submerged, so I doubt there is much water on the inside of it.

 

[Sea Rider]

For owners's peace of mind, the entire crankcase was disassembled, some sand was found inside, all internal rotating components were washed and lubed, were put back and crankcase sealed and torqued. Back to happy life now. Too much time was elepsed since the engine flipped to the ocean before it was lightly cleaned (just combustion chambers and carb). Removing flywheel and manifold, rinsing the whole crakcase with gasoline and oil would have beeen the short cut to clean properly the entire crakcase inmediately after it flipped.

Happy Boating

 

[Sea Rider]

Is it possible to seal both crank case halves with Mega Gray Silicone intead using Loctite 518 and achieve a perfect seal ?

Happy Boating