Almost burned up my motor

Had a buddy from Ohio come down this week. We fished in the hurricane winds Thursday, then fished Friday and yesterday. Friday we ran a lot. I was heading down river Friday and my motor lost power and the alarms started blaring. I immediately turned off the engine. I turned around and looked at the motor and steam/smoke was pouring out from under the cowling. I cranked the motor and no water was coming out the pee hole. I shut it back down. Walked to the back of the boat and trimmed the motor up. There's a bowling ball sized wad of EELGRASS on my lower unit. I've heard of floating plastic bags ruining an engine, but never eelgrass. Since I haven't said it in a month, I HATE THAT STUFF.

Thankfully the engine seems to be fine. I haven't checked compression on it and likely won't but I will be rebuilding the water pump AND I'll be installing a water pressure gauge. I can't believe there are boats built that don't have those from the factory but apparently G3 thinks they're optional.

I have a Solix on my console and there is a screen on it with "gauges." Can anyone tell me what I'd need to make my 2016 Yamaha SHO 115 "talk" to my Solix? At this point I'd rather spend more money than try to install a pressurized line water gauge on the center console. Not sure my nerves could survive fishing that hose through there and trying to keep it from getting kinked or crushed.

What brand of outboard?

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Originally Posted by DockShootinJack

What brand of outboard?

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That would surely help! 2016 Yamaha SHO 115

I added it to the original post. Thanks.

On my 90 yamaha to garmin I needed some sort of box mounted on the motor. 500.00 I believe. Never went further than that.

Call Bucks Island marine. They are a yamaha and hummingbird dealer. I'm sure they can tell you.

On a side note, how was the fishing?

The fishing was tough. The wind Thursday was horrible. We went way up river Thursday and I found fish on the river, but couldn't keep the boat off the fish. Current going downstream, wing blowing straight upstream. We caught a few and had to retreat to the creeks. I couldn't find any in the creeks. I should have gone back upriver Friday but we went downriver, where I was catching them good last year at this time and they weren't there. We did a lot of riding Friday and ended up going back above the dam and shot docks. The few we could find that weren't choked with eelgrass. Caught 15 or so. Then yesterday we went back down river, tried to catch some toothy fish, but they weren't there either. Ended up catching 15 crappie and 30 or so small white bass in the wind, again.

I'm about to write Guntersville off the list, except way upriver. Eelgrass makes my blood pressure go up.

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Originally Posted by FurFlyin

That would surely help! 2016 Yamaha SHO 115

I added it to the original post. Thanks.

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I do not know about the Yamaha. On My Mercury I used a box that plugs into the computer on the motor and communicates through Bluetooth

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Originally Posted by tlefire

On my 90 yamaha to garmin I needed some sort of box mounted on the motor. 500.00 I believe. Never went further than that.

Call Bucks Island marine. They are a yamaha and hummingbird dealer. I'm sure they can tell you.

On a side note, how was the fishing?

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Also, $500 sounded pretty cheap when I saw that steam coming out from the cowling.

From a quick look online. It appears you can link it with your Solix with a Nmea2000 cable for a wired connection. If wireless is more what you want Yamaha has a Command Link Plus module that is wireless

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Originally Posted by DockShootinJack

I do not know about the Yamaha. On My Mercury I used a box that plugs into the computer on the motor and communicates through Bluetooth

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i believe it’s called vessel view for Merc. I am considering one.

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Originally Posted by BuckeyeCrappie

i believe it’s called vessel view for Merc. I am considering one.

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I have one on my Mercury. I like it pretty well. You can look and see any trouble codes. Gives all kind of information right down to how much fuel is flowing through the injectors at the time. Takes about 10 minutes to plug it in to the motor

Man, there's nothing like a sudden engine emergency on the water... to break of the monotony of an otherwise normal fishing day, huh.
I had one the other day, albeit not nearly as scary when my cranking battery was stone dead when I got ready to head toward the ramp.
The best part of it all was: My jump box was still sitting in my shop, where I put it to top of the charge. Isn't that about right??
Glad to hear all is well with your engine.
Thank God for overheating alarms, but I hope I never have occasion to hear one first hand.

Not a good sound

Oh man !
thank goodness for the safety on the motir shutting down and the Alarms !
glad it appears ok have had that to happen a time or two myself !

Sorry to hear about that eelgrass issue. Your story provides vindication to me as I look at that stream ALL THE TIME.

LOL

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Originally Posted by Micanopy

Sorry to hear about that eelgrass issue. Your story provides vindication to me as I look at that stream ALL THE TIME.

LOL

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My old Stratos had a water pressure gauge on the console. It certainly was reassuring to see it

I’ve learned to shift into reverse when I’m heavy weeds. We don’t have eelgrass that I know of but hydrilla will stop up water intakes and also spin a prop hub if balled upon it if you try to take off with it on there. A spun hub is no fun if you’re a long way from the ramp and no spare. Don’t ask how I know.

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Originally Posted by ChoogieChunker

I’ve learned to shift into reverse when I’m heavy weeds. We don’t have eelgrass that I know of but hydrilla will stop up water intakes and also spin a prop hub if balled upon it if you try to take off with it on there. A spun hub is no fun if you’re a long way from the ramp and no spare. Don’t ask how I know.

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I wasn’t in a weed bed. I was cruising down the lake. This was a ball that had broken loose and was floating. It’s everywhere like that on our lake.

Wow. Almost as bad as hitting a floating log just under the surface. That’s common here especially if a lake gets above normal pool. Not much you can do about that.

It is some nasty stuff. Makes fishing terrible when its all broke loose and floating along

I guess this is it. Looks like it might be pretty tough to break too. I’ve not seen it here that I can recall.


We’ll copy and paste didn’t work. But I saw what it looked like.

Looks like monkey grass. Pretty tough

That’s why it looked familiar. I was trying to remember where I had seen something similar but I was thinking aquatic wise. Thanks for freeing up my mind!

I learned growing up on the ocean as a kid,,,anytime you hit grass or moss of any sort to always run the engine in reverse to clear the grass out of engine,,,it’s always been my saving grace when it comes to engine troubles,,,,

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Originally Posted by Takeum

I learned growing up on the ocean as a kid,,,anytime you hit grass or moss of any sort to always run the engine in reverse to clear the grass out of engine,,,it’s always been my saving grace when it comes to engine troubles,,,,

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It’s hard to comprehend without seeing it but you don’t see most of this mess. It floats all through the water column. Some on top. Most below the surface. There’s no way to dodge this mess of eelgrass that we’re plagued with

Pretty nasty stuff. Sounds like you’ll need some of our flying carp to deal with all that grass,,,lol..

I just had an idea. Go to fishntech.com and look at the grass cutter they sell for trolling motors. I know it’s for trolling and not outboard motors but I have one on mine and it works great. Others have just used a piece of steak knife blade. If you could rig something similar on the lower unit it wouldn’t ball up on the prop and might let what’s on the front of the lower slide on off. It epoxies on. If it works, patent it and become rich and famous!

Also Transducer Sheild and saver makes something that does the same thing but is designed differently. It’s possible one might at least help.

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Originally Posted by Takeum

Pretty nasty stuff. Sounds like you’ll need some of our flying carp to deal with all that grass,,,lol..

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Sorry, Takeum ... the "flying carp" don't eat aquatic grass, they're filter feeders that feed on the plankton that all your fry and Shad feed on. I wouldn't wish them critters on anyone, even if they DID eat grass. And while the "grass carp" specie does eat aquatic grasses, Eel Grass is not a preferred menu item for them.

The eel grass on your prop could slow you down enough so those flying won't hit you as hard when they fly into the boat