OK, so my boat's on its trailer in the front yard because of Isabel and
I decide to remove some of the barnacles on it instead of cleaning up
lawn debris and while I'm at it I manage to drop the nut that holds the
little plastic cooling water intake grate onto the side of my Alpha
drive down the propeller exhaust hole! Of course the nut that
Mercruiser chose to use isn't the standard size nut for that thread
(it's smaller) so I'll have to go by a new one only they probably don't
sell just the nut so I'll probably have to buy a whole new outdrive. My
real question is (finally) what will having that little nut rattling
around in there do? I assume it will fall out as soon as I plop the
thing back in the water and start up the engine but is there anything in
there it can hurt?