Boating & Cruising

Photos, ramblings and the occasional bit of useful information from our voyages aboard the runabout Sunset Chaser and other small boats.

What's inside an outboard engine gearcase

Since we have a lower gear case in pieces anyway, I may as well write about how the bottom end of your outboard engine is put together. This is one of those clever mechanisms that we boaters usually just take for granted, and trust the shop to deal with when it fails. It's kind of cool to see how it all works.

Failure analysis: Shredded outboard lower gear set

MBM20130801-202332-3279s.jpgThe outboard's back from the shop (Ward's Marine, Kingston, ON) and the lower gear unit is in pieces. Unfortunately, the damage is worse than we had hoped, and rebuilding with new parts would not be economical. Here's the story of what happened, as told by the shredded innards of the gear set.

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