Hello John Talley here with Boats.net. Today we're gonna spend a little bit of
time and talk about anodes and just how important they are when it comes to
protecting your sterndrive, your outboard, your inboard/outboard, whatever
it is. If it floats in the water, you need to protect it, because what happens when you
put two dissimilar metals down into a water solution is basically you're
creating a battery. Because that's what a battery is: you've got an anode and a
cathode, usually sitting in some type of electrolyte, and that transference of
metals creates a voltage, and that's what happens when you put your boat into the
water. What you want to do is add in a less noble metal that is sacrificial.
Instead of actually eating your drive, that sacrificial metal gets eaten up. Now
on a typical outboard, you're gonna find them in a couple of locations. The first
one is going to be down low on the transom and it usually is mounted like
this. Now the second location actually has a dual purpose. One, it is an anode,
and the second, it is a trim tab. What a trim tab does, it actually compensates
for the prop walk and makes the boat track straight by compensating it one
way or another. Now on your most of your smaller displacement outboards, that's
typically the only two locations that you're going to find. Now if you step up
in horsepower, you're gonna find that they actually have anodes that are
attached to the engine itself, because let's face it: you've got water that's
traveling and traversing through as the cooling system that's actually going up
through the engine itself and that needs to be protected. Now at least once a year,
I would recommend that you go and pull those to make sure they haven't been
eroded away. Now when do you actually need to replace an anode? My rule of
thumb is once they are worn by about 50%. And if you're not sure what fifty
percent looks like, why don't you go to our website, bring up what a new one
looks like and then compared to what's on your boat. More than half of its gone?
It's time to replace it. Now the second type we want to talk about as far as the
engine side goes, is a pencil type. And that is typically used in a situation where
we've got an inboard-outboard set up with a heat exchanger. And at that point, it's
pretty easy to identify them because it looks like just a regular brass plug. But
the trick is, you unscrew brass plug and there's going to be an
anode that should be screwed into the end of it. But there's no way to check
that unless you go ahead and pull it. I've seen occasions where people just
completely overlooked it for years and guess what?
It was completely eaten away, starting to do damage to that heat exchanger and
heat exchangers are not cheap. So once again, once a year, pull that plug,
make sure there's at least 50% of that particular anode left and then you're
good to go for a while. Now the other thing I want to caution you about is
sometimes a year is too long. Everything may be electrically sound on your boat,
it's bonded correctly, it's grounded correctly, all is good with yours. But
what about the boat next to you? Its electrical system may not be up to snuff
and it could attack yours by sending over straight current and prematurely
eating away your anodes way quicker than it should. So you want to check as often
as possible. You're out at the beach anchored off somewhere? Put on that dive
mask, go down and at least take a peek at your exterior anodes to make sure
they're good to go. Because once they're gone, guess what? It's gonna eat your
drive alive and I've seen that happen in as little as two months. I would know
because it happened to me, so something to be aware of. It's not a lot of fun
having to replace the drive that's only a couple of years old because somebody
else had an electrical problem next to you that you didn't know about.
Well alright guys, this is just a basic overview of anodes and just how
important they are, and to keep an eye on them because they will literally save
your boat, and your engine, your outdrive. Well listen, if you need help
finding what is gonna fit on your particular application, why don't you
send us an email or give us a call and we'll be glad to direct you to whatever
is gonna be required for your particular make, model, and year. Listen, if you have
any questions with comments, why don't you leave them in the section below and
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Y'all have a great day.