Tohatsu 50-2 stroke telltale water

[craiglaforce]

Thought I would share my poor troubleshooting for posterity (normally I'm pretty good at troubleshooting).
First time out on the water this year with my boat, no sails on yet, just a quick motor around to the slip. I start moving and notice the telltale water stream is not to be seen. Make it to the slip and tie-up. rev the motor, still no telltale water. Poke a water in the hole, still no tell tale water. Getting worried.

Start and stop the motor a few times, still no water, but water seems to be coming out everywhere else.

Well to make a long story short, the telltale water goes through a rubber tube to the exit hole and is attached via a white plastic barbed connector to the engine housing. The white plastic thing had degraded and broke off, leaving the telltale water hose inside the engine cowling, merrily shooting water all over the inside. Replaced the white plastic barb with a simple barbed hose connector from an auto parts store (5 stores before finding one, everyone was stocked out) and back in business.

Then the power tilt up stopped working. seems I pulled the wire connector apart while trying to push the hose onto the barb. Duh.

All better now.

[Duane Dunn, Allegro]

Yikes, I assume you were in salt water. Make sure you rinse everything really good inside, particularly the wiring harness. You might want to use a product like 'Salt Away' or a electronics drying spray to avoid having troubles in the future.

A bit before the San Juan cruise last year Frank M had a similar problem which soaked his harness in salt water inside the motor cowling. On the cruise he had electrical engine problems because of corrosion in the harness. It didn't take long for things to go wrong. It's an very complicated wiring system and it took quite a while for the mechanic to isolate and jump around the bad wires to get the motor running again. The mechanic said the only way to avoid it just happening again was to replace the entire harness as over time things would just get worse. There are a lot of mid line butt connectors in the harness that seem the most prone to corossion.

[craiglaforce]

Thanks, the water is partly salty so I'll take a look next time to see if it looks like the water got into sensitive areas. Hopefully it drained out rather than spraying around too much. (I was using a bit of colorful artistic license in my previous description, and I don't think it sprayed much beyond the area with the tilt wiring.)

[Tom Spohn]

I had the same problem with our 50 Nissan, but it was caught during the fall winterizing before any harm was done. Sounds like a good item to check periodically.

[kmclemore]

Yep, I have a Nissan/Tohatsu 50 and mine is busted off, too - just a little bit of it sticks through the motor housing... it's on my 'replacement needed' list. I suspect this part can't take sunshine or something.

[Rolf]

Yikes! I just finished posting how trouble free this motor is under the m motor thread..

So was it the salt or the sun that did it? Did all of you have your boats slipped long?
Rolf

[kmclemore]

Well, in my case the boat was stored for quite a long time in the Southwest's strong sun and heat... I suspect that just decayed the plastic prematurely. Don't think this is a severe hit on reliability, though. The stub that's left still seems to send the water the right way.

However, re reliability, my Tohatsu's alternator windings have failed - not sure why as I've never run it disconnected - but I'm having a h*ll of a time finding the parts. Grrrr... Please somebody tell me where to get parts for this puppy! An on-line source would be nice, or failing that, something local to Philadelphia. Nobody I've found so far around here seems to know squat about Nissan/Tohatsu. Is this motor more popular in some other regions of the country?

[mike]

Regarding corrosion on the wiring harness and other connections in the motor, I wonder if it would be worthwhile to coat all of them with that silicone dielectric compound stuff.

--Mike

[Duane Dunn, Allegro]

I don't think the Tohatsu is any more prone to corrosion in the wiring than any other motor. All the wiring harnesses are made the same. With any of them if you flood the engine compartment with salt water you are going to have a problem. The old Tohatsu 2 strokes are actually better than the newer motors in this regard as they have no computers on board to die. The wires in them all tend to wrap around and sit down at the bottom of the compartment so it only takes a couple inches of water to soak them. I don't think you could effectively pre-coat them. They are all wrapped up in bundles with covers that keep them neat, but don't keep out water. Perhaps you could track down all the connection points and give them a spray of something but it would be a fairly involved project.

The Tohastu is a very popular motor in the southern area's, particularly in the fishing world. Any Nissan parts are identical and can be used as well. I know Blue Water Yachts in Seattle has parts and I'm sure they'd be happy to ship them to you. I don't think they sell them over their web site, but you could give them a call, (800) 688-8626 .

[Chip Hindes]

Besides the other websites, Defender will order Tohatsu parts for you. You can also search at the Tohatsu factory site for a local dealer. (Tohatsu dealer search) My own search on zip code 19149 (my inlaws in North Philly) found four factory listed Tohatsu dealers within 25 miles.

They're not that popular in my area either, but I was able to find a dealer through the websearch which was just far away enough to not be listed in the local phone book.

I was told by a serious fisherman friend that Tohatsu 2-strokes are popular with the Inuits because, for them, reliability and the ability to work well in adverse weather and below freezing temps are literally matters of life and death. My friend has a Yamaha, BTW.

[craiglaforce]

2 places I'm aware of that have or can order Tohatsu parts are Trixie's landing on Barnegat bay, just north of Forked River, or the Sailboat shop at Clinton, NJ, just north of spruce lake.

My motor ran fine today, Just got back from sailing all day. Beautiful day, sunburnt and sore.

[jmdefino]

I remembered today that the last time I used my Nissan 50, I did not see water from the tell-tale. Went out today and checked, sure enough, the white barbed plastic had broken off and the tube was laying inside.

Glad I checked this thread. Thanks guys.

[Captain Steve]

I replaced mine with a screw on adapter which allows flushing thru that port. They are on sale all the time on Ebay. It is much beefier and bright yellow with a quick connect adapter for the hose. Cost around 10 bucks.