Contact Us
Hydrolock - What is it and How to Prevent it. (Written by Captain Frank Taylor)
If you have ever experienced hydrolock on your boat engine, you may already know that it can turn a great day on the water into a really bad day in a hurry. What is hydrolock? To put it simply, it is when water gets into your engine cylinders. While this can also happen to car and truck engines, it is more likely to happen with marine engines because of the environment that boats operate in and it is more likely to happen on boats that have exhaust systems that release exhaust under the water’s surface. First, let’s talk about how the typical 4 stroke gasoline engine works. There are four steps (hence the term four stroke) that a cylinder goes through for each combustion cycle: 1. First the intake valve opens and the piston moves down which sucks air and fuel into the cylinder. 2. The intake valve closes and the cylinder moves up which compresses the air-fuel mixture. 3. The spark plug fires, igniting the fuel-air mixture, thus pushing the
