If you're handy at that type of stuff, just start tearing it down to see
what went wrong. I'd guess blown oil line or maybe head gasket.

--


Keith
__
"How soon a ship can age and die for want of the love of a human being."
--Peter Gerard--
"Evan Gatehouse" wrote in message
...
Hi,

We had been motoring from our dock for about 1/2 hour when one of our
outboards started making horrible mechanical sounds (I sort of forgot the
exact sounds because they were so alarming!). I pushed the kill button but
it took a few seconds to kill the motor, which seemed to be partially
running on oil. Oil was everywhere under the cowling and dripping into
the
outboard well. Tons of oil smoke everywhere. Later trying to run the
motor
proved that would idle but sounded very clanking at anything faster. I
killed it again quickly.

Does this sound like a terminal problem with a 1987 outboard (Yamaha 9.9
high thrust 4 stroke)? I recently bought a diesel inboard to be placed in
one of the hulls so I am reluctant to spend anything more than the salvage
value of the outboard motor. I tend to do all my own mechanical work but
have never had to work on a 4 stroke outboard so I don't even know what
could cause that explosion of oil/oil smoke.

Fortunately our boat is a catamaran and we have 2 motors. With one
outboard
motor we can still get about 5-6 knots and she sails faster than she
motors
when there is any wind! So the weekend trip went off without any
troubles.
We hit 11 knots in about an 18 knot gust. grin


--
Evan Gatehouse

you'll have to rewrite my email address to get to me
ceilydh AT 3web dot net
(fools the spammers)