Trailering, engines up or down?

[C-Wolfe]

I’m a proud new owner of a C-Dory 22 with twin Honda 50. When hook up to my truck ( full size 3/4 T), the engines seem to have an ok amount of ground clearance but not as much as I’m use too. I had a couple trailerable sailboat that had a couple feet of clearance so I never worried about hiring ground with kicker. Ideally I would like to keep engines down as to not put undue stress on the transom but also don’t want to do any other damage. So, all that said, I would like to hear form others how they set their engine while on the road.
Thanks for any input.

I’m sure this as been discuss here but could not find any tread, If someone can send link to those I would appreciate it.

 

[Peter & Judy]

I use transom savers on both my 90hp and the 9.9hp kicker. Prevents a lot on the transom.

https://www.amazon.ca/Extreme-Max-3001- ... 203&sr=8-2

 

[thataway]

On my 25 I tow with the engine down. On my 22's I had the engines up, and either a rubber block on the hydraulic cylinder or a piece of wood wedged under the articulating part of the engine mount. I also like to capture the engine's side to side movement with a method of limiting the hydraulic cream on the steering (PVC pipe or rubber blocks over the ram arm.

I have also used the "Transom Saver". I am not convinced it does all that much to protect the transom....There is a lot of load on the boat when in the water during acceleration and deceleration...probably more than on the road...[/i]

 

[ssobol]

My engine skeg has very little clearance from the ground in the down position, so I trailer it with a block of wood in the tilt mechanism. The engine travels in the almost full up position (because that happened to be the size of the piece of wood I found to use).

IMO, the amount of force put on the transom or the trim cylinders by the engine bouncing from roughness on the road is insignificant compared to the load placed on the transom in normal engine operation. If your transom is not waterlogged or otherwise damaged it should have no problem holding the engine when driving.

The only caveat to that is that the tilt cylinder may not be as robust as the trim cylinders. The Honda mount for my engine has 3 cylinders, two trim and one tilt. When the engine is tilted fully up, it is being held by just the tilt cylinder. I use the wood block in the tilt mechanism to spare the tilt cylinder, not the transom. Since I can't see the engine position when the boat is being towed, I would not know if the cylinder failed and the engine dropped until is was too late (probably after miles of dragging the skeg on the road).

 

[hardee]

Not convinced that a Transom saver really does what it says. The suggestion form my mechanic was to block the downward travel at about half way. I use a wooden block that fits into the space under the ram and holds the engine weight, plus a bit of downward pressure on the switch to hold it solid. With lowered bunks and skeg extensions, I would be dragging all the time. I also put some red reflective tape on the back of the OB's that is near vertical with the engines in towing position.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

 

[C-Wolfe]

Thanks for your responses. I do have a bracket on the engine to keep it in the up position and take some of the strain from the tilt cylinder. I’ll be using that for now and a block of wood. I just feel like I have good clearance for normal conditions but here we never know when the road turn from good to bad.

 

[thataway]

Thanks for your responses. I do have a bracket on the engine to keep it in the up position and take some of the strain from the tilt cylinder. I’ll be using that for now and a block of wood. I just feel like I have good clearance for normal conditions but here we never know when the road turn from good to bad.

The bracket on the engine mount is NOT made to hold the engine in trailering position. Do not trailer with this as the only means of support.

Fit a proper block or pipe to take the weight or block of wood.

 

[C-Wolfe]

Thanks for your responses. I do have a bracket on the engine to keep it in the up position and take some of the strain from the tilt cylinder. I’ll be using that for now and a block of wood. I just feel like I have good clearance for normal conditions but here we never know when the road turn from good to bad.

The bracket on the engine mount is NOT made to hold the engine in trailering position. Do not trailer with this as the only means of support.

Fit a proper block or pipe to take the weight or block of wood.

Ok thanks

 

[PaulNBriannaLynn]

Another vote for a block of wood. I cut a piece of 2x4 to the width of the engine mount, and lower the engine until its resting on it.

 

[colbysmith]

I’ve trailered both my past 22 and current 25 with the main and kicker down. About a foot of clearance. Colby

 

[C-Green]

I trailer with engines down, plenty of clearance - CD-22 with twin Honda 40's on an EasyLoader with rollers. Seems best to tether a wood block if used - bad bump and wood flying at 60 mph seems like a bad story.

Jay

 

[garyf]

Engine up with transom saver. The clearance might be OK, but I don't trust it.

 

[ssobol]

... Seems best to tether a wood block if used - bad bump and wood flying at 60 mph seems like a bad story.

Jay

Don't see how that would be possible. The tilt cylinder keeps the engine from moving in either the up or down directions. It is not just the weight of the engine on the block of wood that holds it in place. At least on my boat.

I use a piece of 2x3 for my brace. I get the impression that the tilt cylinder power might be able to break that if I kept my finger on the tilt down switch after the engine settles on the wood. As it is, I can hear the wood start to crunch if I drive it down too much. Don't want to try it and find out for sure though.

 

[hardee]

I trailer with engines down, plenty of clearance - CD-22 with twin Honda 40's on an EasyLoader with rollers. Seems best to tether a wood block if used - bad bump and wood flying at 60 mph seems like a bad story.

Jay

On my Yami 40's I power them down onto the wood block. No way they would/could fly out. Maybe Honda is different?

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

 

[garyf]

Not convinced that a Transom saver really does what it says.

@Harvey - can you expand on this please? What are your concerns? Looking at it mechanically, nothing jumps out at me as a potential problem. It certainly seems to support the weight, and I definitely don't trust my clearance to tow with the outboard completely (or mostly) down. I've got a Yamaha 90 on a 22' Cruiser... the trailer is a custom trailer, so can't compare it to EZ Load or anything. My dad started with an EZ Load and didn't like it so he replaced it with the current setup.

 

[Peter & Judy]

When I bought my boat it was located in Whitehorse, Yukon. The boat came with a transom saver on the Honda 90HP and that is how I hauled back home to Alberta, down the Alaska highway. The Honda 9.9 kicker did not have a transom saver or anything else and the one thing that I found was the the motor would loosen and flop to one side or another and this caused a rub point on the cover. So I bought second transom saver for the kicker. I have since pulled the boat down to Lake Powell, across the Rockies to Vancouver Island and this year around northern Alberta to Lac La Biche and Lesser Slave Lake, as well as a number of shorter trips.

What can I say about the transom saver. When it is installed the motors are slightly up and stay that way, so I would have to be on a really rough road to worry about clearance. There is no bounce and they stay in the exact position that I mount them in and it seems rock solid. I have never tried any other method as until I read this thread, I never knew there were other options. I am happy having both transom savers on my boat, I have no reason to change and they seem to work well and have caused me no problems.

 

[ssobol]

Not convinced that a Transom saver really does what it says.

@Harvey - can you expand on this please? What are your concerns? Looking at it mechanically, nothing jumps out at me as a potential problem. It certainly seems to support the weight, and I definitely don't trust my clearance to tow with the outboard completely (or mostly) down. ...

On thing that occurred to me when I had one on another boat is that unless your boat is lashed down really tight, there can be some movement of the boat on the trailer when you go over bumps in the road (usually for lighter boats). Using the transom saver as designed with one end attached to the trailer and the other to the engine could result in any shocks from the trailer being transferred directly to the engine/transom and if the boat shifts a bit on the trailer then the transom saver can be applying its own loads to the transom, particularly of the boat shifts a bit to one side.

One way to mitigate the forces on the transom from the transom saver would be to have the tilt mechanism free or disconnected so that the engine is free to move at the transom and the transom saver is holding all the tilting force. If any shocks come though or the boat shifts the engine can move and relieve the torque on the transom.

Another way would be to attach the base of the transom saver to the boat transom. Then there would be no forces coming from the difference between trailer and boat positions. This would only relieve the shock pressure on the tilt system, not the transom itself.

The transom saver might have some utility for smaller engines. Ones that are manually tilted and rely on engine thrust to hold the motor in proper position when running. In those cases the transom saver holds the engine up when trailering, but again is not really protecting the transom.

Perhaps a better name for "transom saver" is "skeg saver".

 

[hardee]

Garyf, I think SSobol address my concerns better than I. My main issue was that the transom saver was attached to teh boat on one ind and the trailer on the other and there could be movement between the two, allowing the transom savor to dislodge. ( I did see one guy at a marina who had lost his transom saver somewhere back up the road. It was on a 18 -20 FG open runabout type boat.) I think there is more liklihood of a boat moving on the trailer with rollers instead of bunks, when the trailer flexes, for instance. ON long trips I have lashed the legs down as well as use the blocks for stabilizing the OB's.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

 

[Foggy]

Never had a problem w/o a transom saver or permatrim gadgets.
Strapped tight on a bunk trailer makes sense.

Towing slower and avoiding steep driveways will make you('re OB) happier.
Save the speed thing for when you are in the water.

A boat on a trailer is a fish out of water.

Aye.

 

[C-Green]

I agree with sssobol on the transom saver analysis except for his comment that says the stress will be on the transom if the saver is attached to the transom instead of the trailer. If attached at the base of the transom, there could be no movement because of the hull/stern attachment at that point and therefore no movement at all by the OB when hitting a pothole or bump. Seems to me to be better than an attachment to the trailer except for the stern/hull penetrations to make an adequate attachment point for the saver.
Also my comment on a tether for the wood block held in place by the tilt cylinders - s**t happens and the tether seems like a very cheap safety measure.

Jay