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Real Wake Marine

Small Outboard & Kicker Motor Repair

Small outboard motor repair is mostly one problem wearing different hats — a 9.9 or 15 that sat with ethanol fuel in the bowl, and a carb that needs cleaning before anything else gets diagnosed.

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⭐ X.X from N reviews · No minimum job size · Published rates

What we mean by small

2 to 25hp, two-stroke and four-stroke:

Tohatsu · Mercury and Mariner · Yamaha · Honda · Suzuki · Evinrude and Johnson · Nissan · and the older orphans that turn up in garages.

The one problem, most of the time

Small motors don't wear out. They sit.

A 9.9 that gets used four weekends a year spends eleven and a half months with fuel in the float bowl. Ethanol petrol absorbs moisture and degrades over months, leaving a varnish-like residue behind — and on a small carburettor the passages are small enough that a little of it blocks everything.

That's why the symptoms are so consistent across every brand and both stroke types:

All of it is the same fault. The fix is a proper carburettor clean — bowl off, jets out, passages cleared, new gaskets — not a squirt of cleaner through the intake.

Preventing it is easier than fixing it: run the carb dry before storage, or fit a fuel shutoff and use it. Stabilise whatever fuel stays in the tank.

What else comes up

Impeller and cooling. Small motors overheat as readily as big ones and have less margin. Watch the telltale. Water pump replacement.

Fuel line, bulb and connectors. Perished lines and a bulb that won't firm up are extremely common on older portable motors.

Recoil starters. Broken springs, frayed rope and pawls that won't engage — routine on pull-start motors.

Shear pins. Many small motors drive the prop through a shear pin rather than a rubber hub. It's designed to break, and a spare in the boat is worth carrying.

Gearcase oil. Same rules as any outboard — milky means water.

Plug fouling from trolling. Kickers spend hours at idle, which fouls plugs faster than normal running. If yours fouls every season, that's why.

Charging, or the lack of it. Many small motors have no alternator, or a very small one. If you're running electronics off a battery the kicker isn't charging, that's expected behaviour, not a fault.

Transom height. A short-shaft motor on a tall transom cavitates and runs hot. Worth checking on a motor that's been moved between boats.

Marine, not just small-engine

A lot of small outboards end up at general small-engine shops, because a carburettor is a carburettor.

Some of it transfers. What doesn't: raw-water cooling and impellers, gearcase seals and gear oil, marine corrosion and anodes, shear pins and prop selection, transom height and cavitation, and the fact that a marine motor's failure mode is being stranded rather than walking home.

We work on these as outboards.

Where we do it

At the boat, wherever it's kept — service area.

In your garage, if the motor is already off the boat. Small motors get taken off and left on a stand for a season or three, and that's fine — we'll come to it there.

On a stand or a test tank where we need to run it. We bring water access if there's none available.

Is it worth fixing?

For most small motors, yes, and by a wide margin.

A carb clean and service costs a fraction of a replacement motor. New small outboards are not cheap, and a mechanically sound 9.9 that hasn't run in three years is usually a service away from working.

Compression decides it, same as any motor. Good compression means the expensive part of the motor is fine, and everything else is comparatively cheap.

Older small motors are simple and repairable. Parts availability for the common families is good, and there's no electronics to be unobtainable.

The motors genuinely not worth saving are the ones with scored bores, cracked castings or corrosion damage to the gearcase — and we'll tell you that before you spend anything rather than after.

No minimum job size

Small motor jobs are low-value and take the same travel time as big ones, which is why they're often hard to get booked anywhere.

We take them anyway. A kicker service is a real job and gets treated as one. Rates and call-out are published so you can see exactly what a small job costs before you book — no surprises, and no being quietly deprioritised.

Frequently asked questions

Is there anywhere doing small outboard motor repair near me?
We cover Columbia County and take small motors as standard, including 2–25hp kickers and portables. No minimum job size.

My kicker sat for three years and won't start. Is it worth anything?
Usually yes. Motors that sit almost always need a carburettor clean and fresh fuel rather than anything serious. Compression tells us the rest.

Can I bring the motor to you?
We come to you — including to a garage if the motor is already off the boat. There's nowhere to bring it to, which is the point of the model.

Why won't my small outboard idle?
Blocked idle circuit in the carburettor from old fuel, in the large majority of cases. It'll typically still run at speed.

What's a shear pin and do I need spares?
A soft pin that drives the prop and breaks deliberately on impact to protect the gearcase. If your motor uses one, carry spares — replacing it takes minutes and being without one ends the trip.

Do you service the kicker on a bigger boat?
Yes, and it's worth doing at the same time as the main motor rather than remembering it the day you need it.

My motor is 40 years old. Will you look at it?
Yes. Vintage and antique motors are a category we specifically work in.

Why does my trolling motor foul plugs every season?
Extended idling, which is what kickers are for. It's normal rather than a fault, though a rich setting or ignition weakness makes it worse.

Book small outboard service

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