Ran 115 Merc without oil

[GoodToGo]

This weekend through a combination of stupidity and a malfunctioning low oil alarm I ran my 1997 115 Merc out of oil at cruising speed. The motor quit like the key was turned off, no bad noises. I thought it was out of gas, added 5 gallons. It started again, sounded fine. After 1/4 mile it quit again, the same way. This time I figured out it was out of oil. I added oil, waited awhile, and started it. It seemed to idle fine, so I idled back to the landing, but I could hear a fainter clacking sound. Not rough, but definitely a something was not right. Any thoughts on this? I am bringing it in, but what does experience say?

This was in equipment topic, moved to this one

[overdalimit]

Probably scored the cylinders. Time to bore and replace the pistons rings and bearings. Bummer.

[dkf]

Motor will probably need a top end rebuild at least. Should have the heads pulled and case split to examine the cylinder and the bottom end. Might want to look into a reman powerhead. I like the 3+ gallon oil tank on my Yamaha, you will run out of gas long before you run out of oil.

[Northlander]

If you remember to fill it.

[boatfixer]

You could do a compression check for the heck of it, but I'm guessing you burned up some pretty important parts. You won't be able to pull the head because there isn't one. Sorry to hear this GTG.

[NAMASafetyDirector]

Yep, probably smeared one of the pistons, if your lucky it was only one and you might be able to get by honing that cylinder and installing a new piston/rings etc and be good to go. All delpends if the piston stayed together or if it broke apart in which case you probably have some aluminum debris in the crankcase which will require the whole engine to be dissasembled. Start with a compression check and you might be able to identify which cylinder is damaged. Happens alot on sleds and such and alot of times you can get by with just fixing the damaged cylinder. All depends how picky you are, you may want to just look for a powerhead or have the whole engine rebuilt for peace of mind. Sorry that happened!