The Sub £300.00 4hp Outboard...

[LondonRascal]

You know sometimes when you find yourself in the odd part of You Tube, or end up in whacky part of E-Bay..I found out Amazon has one of these little explored isle's too.  You see you can buy outboard engines on Amazon - I knew you could get electric ones that produce a few pounds of thrust, but I had no idea you could get engine powered ones too. What about a price tag starting at £199.00? Now a good size would be about 3.5HP to 4HP for a small dinghy type set up, and for the modest price of £268.59 you can have one.

This as you will see is not an outboard you will be familiar with, it has a single gear and in order to go astern you move the entire engine around on its pivot. They are air cooled, in fact let's not beat about the bush what you are really getting is a lawnmower engine that drives a propeller. But the great thing about that is they are so easy to work on, parts are cheap as chips and they have very little to actually go wrong.

I think these would make ideal engines for people who have a tiny tender that might not get used much, and that the expense of a branded 'proper' outboard is not worth, but a cheap engine that can be put on easy and weights very little is great.

Link: http://amzn.eu/d/9Cq3rAC 

[JamesLV]

There was thinking you’d bought another boat!

[finny]

I'm presuming they are from China and being a brand snob i would have knocked something like this in the past - but not no more ,i have a Stil chainsaw that decided to call it a day in the carburetor department ,my local expert wanted best part of 70 quid to replace i found on Amazon a replacement that suited for less than a tenner - it came i fitted first pull it was away .......anyway at that kind of money i think you have just uncovered the first throw away outboard - i would buy should i be needing one 

 

finny  

[fishtone]

That's interesting Robin,cannot go wrong at that price. No different to the old aircooled sea bee. this one is 4t so no fuel mixing. Had a sea bee as a standby on a 18ft Shetland once and it pushed along ok when needed.

[Smoggy]

I'd like to know what they did to that plate to make it so depressed!

I love dodgy chinese translations....

[DaveRolaves]

Many of us will remember the trusty Seagull outboard motor. It always started and was reliable . Still advertised for sale

on E Bay.

 

[MauriceMynah]

Sub £300 outboard? I very much think not!!! I'm sure Griff will confirm this but as I understand it, outboards on submarines are next to bloody useless.

[FairTmiddlin]

1 hour ago, DaveRolaves said:

Many of us will remember the trusty Seagull outboard motor. It always started and was reliable

They were until the flywheel slipped out of time usually mid river. Typical bloomin Villiers.

[JawsOrca]

Take a look at these, spotted them at the southampton boat show: https://www.boatworld.co.uk/boats/outboard-motors 

Not quite as cheap as this, but £100 per horsepower is really on par with the old 2 stroke prices yet 4 stroke engines... love the name too :) :) 

[ChrisB]

The trouble I see with these deals is there is virtually zero brand support as they are mostly sold via one dealer/importer and who is to say he will be around tomorrow.

I will stick with Mercury/Mariner/Tohatsu, Yamaha or Honda with their established dealer network.

 

[JawsOrca]

These smaller engines are all the same base model, therefore you shouldn't have problems really.  Talking with the chaps at boatworld they have been around for some years, apparently so have these engines, must admit I've seen a few on the broads. I wouldn't hesitate about purchasing one from them, certainly at half the price of the bigger brands. 

[ChrisB]

I suppose the thieves won't target them. 

[TheQ]

I still have a Seagull Sliver Century Plus in the Shed, unfortunately it would sink the 8 ft dinghy, as it's a bit big. however those outboards look very interesting..

[JennyMorgan]

2 hours ago, ChrisB said:

I suppose the thieves won't target them. 

They might, in order to re-engine their lawn mowers!

[marshman]

You will also need a set of recent ear defenders (the small aircooled Honda 2hp makes a din) and holding the handle will send shivers up your arm - don't forget to check for RSI after a bit. Although it does not carry a wallet warning, it should carry a health one!!!

Why does everyone have fond memories of Seagulls? I used to keep boats on swinging moorings and for what it is worth, when you got back having left the dinghy, it always failed to start when it was cold and wet - just when you wanted it to start!!  4 strokes when they came in were heavier I admit, but they never let me down!!!

[MauriceMynah]

Oh dear, Marsh and I sit on opposite sides of the fence yet again. I've owned Seagull outboards for over 40 years and only had one let me down once. (and even then it started but no cooling water and I cooked it)

Used and abused, neglected and left to rot, my Seagulls would start 3rd pull or less every time. hey ho !

[grendel]

13 minutes ago, MauriceMynah said:

Oh dear, Marsh and I sit on opposite sides of the fence yet again. I've owned Seagull outboards for over 40 years and only had one let me down once. (and even then it started but no cooling water and I cooked it)

Used and abused, neglected and left to rot, my Seagulls would start 3rd pull or less every time. hey ho !

ah so the issue with seagulls is really down to maintenance, and the consensus is 'dont'

[unclemike]

18 minutes ago, grendel said:

ah so the issue with seagulls is really down to maintenance, and the consensus is 'dont'

the real issue with seagulls is, they nick your chips and crap all over the paintwork on your car

[Baitrunner]

Looking on Amazon was surprised to see a 3.5hp 2 stroke for sale. 

Look at the link and expand the full description. It's hilarious.  

This bit I love :- .The machine itself is lightweight, it can use on boat weight of 100kg or less , load-bearing 4 people, but the speed is certainly not the same whenone person on it or 4 people on it . Customer who has high expectations on speed, please be noticed.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B07GZCPYXJ/ref=sspa_mw_detail_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[ChrisB]

1 hour ago, marshman said:

You will also need a set of recent ear defenders (the small aircooled Honda 2hp makes a din) and holding the handle will send shivers up your arm - don't forget to check for RSI after a bit. Although it does not carry a wallet warning, it should carry a health one!!!

Why does everyone have fond memories of Seagulls? I used to keep boats on swinging moorings and for what it is worth, when you got back having left the dinghy, it always failed to start when it was cold and wet - just when you wanted it to start!!  4 strokes when they came in were heavier I admit, but they never let me down!!!

I had Century Plus motors on my Seawych and a Folkboat. Never failed to start second pull after a tickle and full choke from cold. The secret with Seagulls is always run the carb dry but the later models could be re-jetted to allow 25:1 instead of 10:1, this transformed the engines. For a short period they went 50:1 but it was a step too far and they suffered alot of crank bush failures.

[Smoggy]

I have to say I wouldn't touch a cheap chinese outboard but.....

I bought a brand new suzuki 2.5 and started the run in period as described, ran it for 2 hours and put it away having run the fuel out and let the water drain out, a month later dragged it out to put some more gentle hours on it and it wouldn't start, eventually checked the plug to see if I'd flooded it to see it bone dry, put finger over the hole and pulled as a matter of habit to find no compression so took rocker cover off to check valve clearances, Mmmmm why is there only one pushrod and a rocker flapping around??

Exhaust valve had stuck open so when I pulled the starter cord the pushrod dropped into the sump, needed the motor quicker than a warranty job was going to take so got valve moving with soft rope down the plughole and a gentle turnover to push it shut and managed to fish the pushrod out through the filler plug with a magnet on the end of a bit of wire and put back together, luckily it has been fine since but don't just assume a branded jap engine will be perfect.

Still wouldn't buy a cheap chinese one though, I'm probably just stupid!

[finny]

I often wonder how many " Branded products" are often outsourced from the cheaper side ,stick on the badge and who would know ?

finny

[JennyMorgan]

3 hours ago, finny said:

I often wonder how many " Branded products" are often outsourced from the cheaper side ,stick on the badge and who would know ?

finny

I rather think that we might be mightily surprised. Some years ago myself & two friends had fishing rods from ABU, Shimano and Shakespeare, all top marques in the wonderful world of angling and all the rod sections being interchangeable with each other!

[Smoggy]

Tohatsu/Mariner/Yamaha have shared a lot of bits of the years.

[LondonRascal]

It depends on what you use the engine for - if you own a Shetland 4+4 and this would be your only motive power you might go for the brand, the backup and so on and you may also consider re-sale value - Honda = known Hongda = Not known avoid. This may make your boat harder to sell on, or attract a lower price. I get that.

What I don't get is all the small tenders out there, used a handful of times if that in a season. Deflated tubes, green beginning to spread along the ropes and cover, and yet bolted on the back is a nice, expensive branded outboard. I don't get that.

The outboard I shared is at the 'disposable cost' so it runs great for a year and then the following year gives some issues, you find out it needs a small part, unique to this and the seller on Amazon you bought it off is no longer around - you scrap it and buy another.

Moving on to the the 'proper' looking, water cooled outboards that are clones on branded models and share branded parts, are doing well and when you see some rescue services with Parsun outboards on the back of their boats it begs the question - how bad can they be? But even then two or three years service out of an outboard that costs you £400.00 before it might give up the ghost, to me is good value and worth it.

The same goes for the latest crop of warm air heaters from Russia - cheap and reliable units with increasing UK support makes the big branded multi-thousand pound choices harder to justify.

These motors are not for everyone, but for the person who goes for a fishing trip now and then, pops along the river to the local pub form the Marina and does not want to take their larger boat these cheap and cheerful units make perfect sense to me.