Easily Diagnose a Spun Hub

We often get asked by customers to check if their hub is spun. Unless it is obvious (chewed up rubber, hub is off center or sunk, etc) we cannot test for a spun hub. The reason for this is that in order to see if a hub is spun, it needs to be put under a load, ie, pushing the boat in the water.

If it is not visually obvious, the only way we know if a hub is spun is from customer feedback. Often times, the prop will push the boat fine at lower RPM, but when you push down on the throttle, it will slip. It kind of feel like when a car’s transmission is going out (you keep giving it gas, it revs up, but doesn’t go anywhere).

If you are not sure if your hub is spun, there is an easy way to test.

Take a center punch and a hammer and put a punch mark on the hub and on the prop so they line up. Then you can take the boat out and run it as you usually would. When you look at the prop, if the punches do not line up anymore, your hub is spun.

In order to more easily diagnose hub problems, we recommend punching the hub BEFORE you think you have a spun hub. We punch every prop we rehub in order to make it easier in the future to tell if the hub is spun.