Publisher's Note: Welcome to our 17th edition of Tech Tips Tuesday on "Marine Gear Lube Protection: Secure Your Boat's Lower Unit with AMSOIL".  We'll be re-publishing an edition of AMSOIL Tech Tips for you every Tuesday.  Click on the Blog Category "AMSOIL" to see everything published to-date.

Marine Gear Lube Protection: Secure Your Boat's Lower Unit with AMSOIL

John Gardner: I got a good idea. Take this boat motor; it's 60 horsepower. You know they have 300, 400, up to 600 horsepower motors now. Let's take that power through a drive shaft, turn it 90° through a prop shaft, and spin this propeller at a sick RPM. Better yet, let's submerge it in some water. Not such a great idea, and you better have some good protection. Matter of fact, let's look at the lower unit right there. You can actually see inside of it the exploded view. You got the drive shaft coming down, it's connected to that actual propeller shaft I was talking about, but in between, there are all kinds of bearings, gears to get the job done, and seals, so you need to lubricate it. AMSOIL has us covered. How do you lubricate it? Well, it's pretty simple. What you do is you just go through there. We went ahead and did ours. We removed the top plugs on there, and then we removed the bottom plug. What that did is it allowed it to drain. We didn't create a vacuum. Once we got that done, we replaced one of the top plugs. We went ahead and started filling the bottom till it actually overflowed. Then we put the top plugs in, and man, we were good to go.

But Len's back with AMSOIL. Len, man, there's a lot going on in a lower unit, and put it in some water, you better have some good protection.

Len Groom: Yeah, it's a recipe for disaster is what it could be, especially with some of the fishing line that's out there today. People throw it in the water, you end up running over it. It gets stuck in that output shaft seal, and you've got problems. You fill it with water, and the oil needs to provide protection no matter what. That's the key with these. As you said, there could be water ingestion, so you have water in it. The AMSOIL Marine gear lube will still provide protection with up to 15% water in it.

John Gardner: Now, you're out there fishing, you pick up some of that braided line, you don't know it. It was actually submerged in water. Water will get in there, and you won't know it till later, till you see it dripping on the driveway.

Len Groom: That's correct, and there's nothing you're going to do about it. You just need to know that you're protected. So, we know that. We figure that into the formulation, and then we provide protection for you.

John Gardner: Now, another game changer, Len, actually filling it up and doing it with the easy pack. Tell us about that process, and you have a pump as well.

Len Groom: Well, yeah, that's correct. The easy pack is very simple. You just simply cut that end off, and it will actually thread into that lower unit. So, you just turn it a few times. It'll bite. Go ahead and squeeze it, roll it, whatever you have to do, and it'll take care of you. And then, for those that like to use the gear pump, we do offer it in a hard case as well.

John Gardner: Make sure you follow your specifications and everything in your service manual when you're doing a lower-end service.