Merc drain plugs
 

Those blue plastic drain caps, is it recommended to change them every year with fresh ones? Every year for some reason they like to leak when commisioning in the Spring and as soon as I try and tighten them, they break :mad:

I bought a few extras for the glove box just incase. I just wondered if anyone else was having the same problem.

I opened my boat up antifreeze in my bilge this spring, I found one of the plugs craked. Like you said, I bought extra !!! Boat is a 97 with 520 hours and this is the first problemwith them.

Trout, no I do not, probably because I did not know :(

Thanks for the tip :)

Where do you get that stuff? is it Merc OEM stuff or Auto supply store stuff.

Thanks

Those things suck! I had one crack off and fall into the bilge last year. Motor had maybe 100 hours on it. I have closed cooling, but luckily for me it was on the raw water side. The way I found it was I had pulled up to a restaurant when the bilge pump kicked on. I also had spares on board so it was an easy fix.

I take it your talking about the raw water pump drain plugs,
I too had a leak in mine (both of them) that I noticed while warming it up in the yard proir to changing the oil.
2001 496HO with only 37 hours.
When I pulled the plugs out there was no sign of any cracks but when I was inspecting the housing it looks like the counterbore where the O-ring seats is machined to deep and there is alot of casting flash that the plug bottoms on first. Simple fix just apply a little RTV silicone on the threads and install.
No more leaks yet. :D