Repair & maintenance guides

Onboard Tool Kit and Spare Parts: What to Carry on a Day Boat or a Cruiser

Build a tool kit and spares box that fits your boat and how far you go. A blown fuse, a clogged fuel filter or a dinged prop shouldn't end the day or turn into an expensive tow.

Portable Toilets on Boats: Emptying, Chemicals, Odor, Seals and Winter Storage

A portable toilet (Porta Potti type) is the simplest legal head for a small boat, as long as it is emptied the right way. Learn where to dump it, which chemicals to use, how to stop odor and leaks, how to secure it aboard, and how to store it for winter.

Propeller Care: Inspect, Remove, Replace and Choose the Right Pitch

Check your prop for damage, pull it to clear fishing line and grease the shaft, reinstall it correctly, and learn how pitch affects your engine's wide-open-throttle RPM. The right prop in good shape protects your engine and often makes the boat run better and use less fuel.

Salt and Scale in Raw-Water Cooling: Flushing Habits, Descaling and When It's a Shop Job

Learn how salt and scale slowly narrow your engine's cooling passages, how to spot the warning signs (a temperature that creeps up over seasons, a weak telltale, thermostats sticking), the flushing habits that prevent it, which descaling products and methods engine makers accept, what never to pour through an engine, and when to hand the job to a shop.

Small Portable Outboard Care (2.5 to 20 hp Kickers and Dinghy Motors)

Keep your dinghy motor or kicker starting on the first few pulls. Use fresh fuel, flush it, run the carburetor dry before you put it away, carry and lay it down on the correct side so oil doesn't flood the cylinders, and check the shear pin or prop, gear oil and engine oil on schedule.

Testing Engine Coolant: Test Strips, Refractometer or Lab Analysis

Coolant can look perfect and still be worn out. Learn how to test the coolant in a closed-cooled inboard, sterndrive, diesel or generator with test strips, a refractometer or a mail-in lab kit, what each result tells you, and when the answer is a coolant change or a call to a mechanic.

Two-Stroke Oil Injection vs. Premix: How It Works and How to Check It

A two-stroke engine dies quickly without oil in its fuel, so the oil injection system and its alarms deserve regular attention. Learn how injection and premix differ, what the warning horn is telling you, how to check the system, how to premix safely using your manual's ratio, and the real risks of disabling injection.

Two-Stroke Premix Conversion: Living With an Engine That Had Its Oil Injection Removed

Bought a two-stroke outboard or PWC whose oil injection was removed, or thinking of doing it? Learn how to confirm what was done, mix fuel at the ratio from your manual every single time, label your tanks so nobody forgets, choose NMMA TC-W3 oil and understand the real risks.

V-Drive Transmission Care for Wake and Ski Boats: Fluid, Cooler, Coupler and Shaft Seal

Wake boats and many ski boats put the engine in the stern, backward, and turn the power through a V-drive transmission. Learn how to check and read the transmission fluid, why the cooler and its drain matter in winter, what the coupler and shaft seal tell you, and which noises and leaks mean it's time for a technician.