The cooling circuit should be flushed with fresh clean water to remove salts from the passages.

Stern drive boat in saltwater. Since sterndrive motors are entirely outside a boats hull they are more likely to be damaged in shallow waters. Here are a. Thats not to say a stern drive cant go out on the ocean.

The older stern drives were very poor for salt water. Saltwater or brackish water are going to have a corrosive effect on the exposed sterndrive. Use an Anti-Salt Additive.

Make sure the zincs are in. 4 Problems With the Bottom Paint. In sterndrive engines the motor is in the back of the boat under the transom.

You should also make sure that you flush and spray the drive. You can definitely use a freshwater boat in saltwater - no problem. If the stern drive had one of those systems then it would be ok for salt water still not as desirable as inboard but much less expensive too.

While saltwater engines come with cooling systems that will flush the saltwater out a manual flush or wash with freshwater when you get back to the dock is a good habit to develop. Furthermore stern drive engines will require exhaust manifolds usually in 5-7 years in a salt water environment. Just bought a 11 Sea Ray with a 43 IO.

Rinse trailer flush brakes per trip. The majority of stern-drive equipped boats use a raw water cooling system to cool the engine and stern drive unit. This is the primary reason that we do not recommend stern drives for use in salt water.