Engine Hours?? - Too much?
 

So how many hours are too many? My dad used to say an average outboard was good for 1000 hours if you maintain it? Agree? Disagree? Post up them guages boys!

Your Dad maybe a little off.....
The Old Tin Can "NoBones" had a 1980 75 HP Johnson Stinger that had
well over 2700 hours of use before it quit... No pics, sorry to say..
The 1968 Seamaster had 550 hours before it's untimely death in 1980...:(

Attachment 2731

The old saying goes, If you take care of it, It will take care of you!!
Age and hours mean nothing if you just adhere to the above simple rule!

FYI

Don't trust the meter unless you know how it is wired!

Like a dumb ass, I left the key switch on over a week & mounted up some hours on my meter :mad:

Time drifting may count against your boat`s meter.
Your time diving is not counted. Or so my dreams tell me.

Any two stroke person will do a compression test first.

Document that with your vesselll log. Mine is my mind, B.W.`s is on paper.

Still learning,
GFS

I have 750 hours on a 2000 model year Yamaha F100. My local expert says I won't need to adjust the valves until over 1000 hours.

there is no general rule for outboard life cause 99% of them go bad from lack of maintenance, corrosion, ignition problems, bad lower unit or trim and tilt, etc. You have about a 1% chance of wearing the motor out to the point wear cylinder walls are egg shaped and the motor needs to be bored over sized. If you are luck enough to avoid all the typical problems with routine maintenance (and luck) you'll see 2000+ hours on two strokes and more on 4 strokes. Commercial motors used everyday will go even more.

Back in the day I had a 17' Check Mate V Mate II with a 235 Rude that we used at least 225 days a year on the lake behind the house. ran the engine for 4 years before I took it to a machine shop to tweek it to go a little bit faster (80+MPH is still fast today). So a typical day would run may be 3-4 hours X 225 days X 4 years and you can do the math

Boy did I love that boat and I do have it ducked away at my mother in laws ranch ....Maybe some day it will ride again

The '96 Yamaha 225 SWS on my father's Sceptre had ~1400 hours on it when he sold the boat last November and it was still going strong. He maintained the engine to a tee, which as Big mentioned, is key to longevity. He always ran Ring Free, used top shelf oil, etc. and the engine never let him down. All of this was on a new factory powerhead which was replaced in '04 when he bought the engine.

In 1996 I purchased a clean/cheap 1994 - 90 hp 2-stroke Johnson that was previously owned and run by Cypress Gardens. (pontoon boat for lake cruises) Gene of Gene's lakeside (RIP) said that they would switch them out with new motors at X amount of time. The X was rumored to be 3000 hours. Five hours a day x 363 x 2 years old. Not run real hard probably 3500 to 4000 RPM on the boogie. It lasted me another 100 hours or so before a ring caught a port and broke because the bores were so wore out. Rebuild cost me $1500 in machine work and parts and she runs today. Maybe 1000 hours SMOH.

So this from the Yamaha site. I normally wouldn't believe such stuff but I see these guys in Chas. Harbor all the time. 6800 and 5300 hrs.

http://www.yamahaoutboards.com/yamah...ge/reliability