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Scraping sound when running

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spychocyco

New member
Hi. I just bought a new Tracker with a Mercury 60 Four Stroke. I'm just through the break-in phase, which I did by the book. About a week ago, I ran about five miles down the bayou with the motor running beautifully. We fished for three or four hours, and when I cranked the motor to return to the boat ramp, it started making a scraping sound when the prop is engaged. There was no loss of power. The boat still got on plane and got up to speed just like it had been, but I got scared that I was going to tear something up, so I shut it down and trolled in.

When I got home, I pulled the prop to see if there was something wrapped around it. While I had it off, I knocked out the hub to check on it, and discovered that it was spun. It's under warranty, but my dealer is two hours away, and it was a simple and relatively cheap fix. I didn't want any downtime, so I ordered a new hub and replaced it. Thinking I'd solved the problem, I put it back in the water this afternoon, but the scraping noise is still there. It wasn't quite as bad as it was last week, but it's still there. Only when the prop is engaged and the scraping gains speed with the RPMS, so I'm thinking it has to be something with the prop.

I checked the oil in the lower unit when I got home. No water and no metal flakes that I could see. I'm stumped. I guess I'm going to have to make the trek back to the dealer with it and just hope whatever it is doesn't take too long to fix, but just curious if anyone has any ideas of what it might be.
 
Thanks for that thread. That sounds exactly like my issue, and there is definitely some scraping on the prop where it goes into the lower unit. Ugh. I was afraid it was a lower unit issue, but still hoping I'd find some easy miracle cure to keep me on the water.
 
Pull the prop the scrapes should be visible on the hub or the bearing carrier.
I bought a 21" prop last year and found that there was a large gap where it fit into the LU outer casing of my 1975 850, I had to take a plastic ring off another prop to fill in the gap; there have been some design changes over the years or the prop is designed for a lower HP.
 
Talked to the dealer today. He says he's got another brand new boat sitting in his shop with the same problem. He thinks it's a bearing issue. Going to let me know when he gets that one torn apart and figures it out, then I can bring mine. Guess I'm fishing on the trolling motor for a while.
 
Best not to travel too far from the boat ramp with a "scraping" sound coming from the motor. If it is a bad bearing or shaft the motor could freeze up. You got the right idea to just move around the water with the trolling motor until your outboard is fixed. I used only my trolling motor and followed the shore line one foggy morning and caught five bass in 30 minutes.
 
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