Re: STAINLESS VS. ALUMINUM
 

Why? *Your zinc anodes will deplete before your aluminum. *I'm in a wet slip with stainless steel with no problems. *Any aluminum in the water is painted with outdrive paint (not bottom paint). *If you have real issues about your outdrive while in a slip, you may have stray currents and it might not be from your boat, but somebody else in a slip near you. *You should spin your hub before you tear up your outdrive. *I kept twin alpha ones in the nasty Florida salt water, however, they were stripped to bare aluminum and painted with zinc oxide paint and then outdrive paint with no problems. *A big issue in warm water is barnacles. *I've run them both and it ain't just bling. Just my opinion, but I'll take stainless. ;D

Re: STAINLESS VS. ALUMINUM
 

I have SS but I am on a trailer!

The one thing I do and have old a few to do is to make sure you remove that prop every year and prease the splines when putting it back!!

I had a friend that never took his prop off till he had to, and after the welder torched it off he had to replace all seals in the out drive cause of the heat!

When you on slip don't you lift the outdrive out of the water??
Then there is no prop in the water right??

I have never sliped a boat before?

Re: STAINLESS VS. ALUMINUM
 

no need to add more zinc, just make sure the zincs you have are properly grounded, use an ohm meter and check for continuity between all parts of the drive to a sutable gound inside the boat. clean the surfaces behind the mounting locations for the zincs, use the supplied star washers to improve contact( especially the one that comes with the new prop that everyone throws away), keep the zincs fresh by scrubbing them with a wire brush. If you keep your boat in an area thats doesn't have a lot of current( tide current not electrical), you might consider a Mercathode system( electronically replaces teh zincs) but you will need shore power of some sort to keep the battery from going dead. Soem people add zincs to the trim rams on older drives, check for interference. The easiest thing to do is to add a zinc grouper, its a big zinc( shaped like a fish for appearance only), that has a gounding cable and a lanyard to cleat it off, just clamp the cable to the engine block or sutable ground and tie the lanyard to a cleat and drop it iin the water. Don't forget to pull it out before using the boat!. If you really want to get into it, Mercruiser has a worksheet that walks you thru all the corrosion test, you're required to fill it out before submiting a corrosion claim uunder warranty, it takes a while to do it, but it will find a problem. You might want to take a look at the boats around your slip, don't keep your boat near older junkers if your using shore power, their electrolisys problem can become your problem thru the ground wire of shore power if you dont have an galvanic isolater

Re: STAINLESS VS. ALUMINUM
 

On an I/O, you'll never get the entire outdrive out of the water. With my outboard and the cutting board I mounted on top of the splashwell I still have part of the lower unit in the water.

Re: STAINLESS VS. ALUMINUM
 

I have a place on High Rock lake with a nice 16ft x 16ft floating dock attached to a 10ft x 30ft stationary dock that I built myself. I am scared to death to leave my V there over night (but I have before). Of course we have wakeboarders that come right past it and throw their huge wakes right up on my dock, but even if they didn't do that I'd be a nervous wreck!