Outboard Covers designing splash covers that stay on the motor when operating

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How to find out your motors leg length?

What is 'Trim & Tilt'?

Y Forks or motor holder bracket?

Year of your motor?

Each outboard manufacturer has the same standard for measuring the leg size of a motor. This is done by measuring the boats transoms and then the manufacturer will order the correct leg size (or length) for your boat. The standard units of measure for an outboard are listed below, DONT get confused when some boaties will say it's a standard leg. This could mean it's a standard long or standard XL or really anything......

Model	Size in inches
Short which is	15"
Long which is	20"
XL which is	25"
UL or XXL which is	30"
UUL or XXXL which is	35" not common

To make it easy Outboard Covers have a couple of ways which make it easier for ALL to ensure we get the leg length correct and they are listed below. You can provide the MODEL number as outlined below or give us the overall height of the outboard so we can compare your measurement with the patterns and lengths we have ensuring the correct height = the correct leg length.

DONT MEASURE THE LEG ONLY OR ANY OTHER PART OF THE MOTOR, WE NEED THE TOTAL HEIGHT FROM THE SKEG TO THE TOP

There are other legs in the market place such as Big Foots & Pro Kickers for the Mercury/Mariner range and High Thrust for the Yamaha range. You should know if you have one of these motors? How this is done is manufacturers as an example Yamaha 60hp high thrust will have the same motor only the leg will vary and how this varies is the gear box (bottom half of outboard) and prop will come of a 80hp gear box and lower leg section. Hence this makes the leg bottom bigger and we need to know this. These legs also come in the standard format listed above. So as an example you can have a 20" High Thrust leg on the motor mentioned or a 25" high thrust.

There are a couple of ways of working out the leg length of your motor...they are:

OPTION 1: View the "ID badge"number of the motor which is usually located on the mounting bracket or just under the head of the motor near the top of the leg. Make a note of this information and write in on the box provided on the order form.

Yamaha	This motor has a long leg (20") because of the L if it had a X it would an XL (25") or Yamaha only do Hight Thrust legs in Four strokes up to 60hp, so based on the diagram above the code would then read FT 350 A ETOX = F= 4stk, T= High Thrust (if it was a high thrust), 350= HP, A=Generation, E=Electric start, T= Power trim n tilt, O = Oil Inj and X = Leg Size. See option 2 below if unsure this is by far and away the safest option!
Mercury/ Mariner	The ELPTO tells us that it is a Long (20") so if you have a 60EXPTO it's a XL or 25" See option 2 below if unsure this is by far and away the safest option!
Johnson/Evinrude	Please provide the model number circled NOT the serial. Evinrude will start with an E then the horsepower and letters. Johnson as above with a J then the horsepower & the letters J115PXSRC See option 2 below if unsure this is by far and away the safest option!
Tohatsu	See option 2 below
Honda	See option 2 below
Suzuki	See option 2 below

OPTION 2. The other & the easier way is to simply measure the motor from the very top to the very bottom (include the fin or skeg) side on is usually the best. All measurements should be in centimetres please.

or POWER TRIM?

Trim and Tilt (power trim) is a term used to describe if your motor has electric lifting or not capability! Can you push a button either on the motor and/or on the throttle or near there to make your motor go up and down (or both)? If you have that button you have trim and tilt (trims & tilts the motor). So the answer would be YES!

If not, you only have manual trim and tilt and we will need to leave a hole in the SPLASH cover for you to get your hand into to pull the motor up or down out of the water. So your answer would be NO I don't have trim and tilt.

What are we talking about? Simply put there is an "after market" bracket that can be fitted that comes from your trailer up to above your cavation plate that looks like a 'Y'. The motor can rest in this and it is designed to take the strain off the motor when travelling on bouncy roads if you get my drift? They have been called a lot of different names but the most common would be the "TRANSOM SAVER" Our covers do not interfere with these as long as the' Y part is padded with a little rubber of foam to protect our zip from being crunched down in bottom of the 'Y'.


*" Transom Saver or Y fork bracket "*

What year is my motor?? Most outboard motors have the year etc printed on the ID badge, unfortunately 40% of the brands available don't which does creates a problem for us. People don't realise that we have around 770 different motor patterns going back with some of them to the 1970's. How can we find out how old your motor is? Please include the Serial and model number and we can usually tell from this information. If you are unsure please send us a digital photo from your phone camera or normal digital camera to orders@outboardcovers.com.au with a note mentioning your order. I am happy to call you back and try and work out over the phone what motor year you have, normally we can do this in about 2 minutes.