Two questions.

[wagonmaster]

1. The belt on my Strongarm TW9000 electric winch was looking worn, so I had Sherwood replace it. They wound it on wrong way around so that in order to bring my boat in, I had to move the lever to the out position. It did work, but struggled and there was a distinct electrical burning smell coming from the winch while operating. I am going to have this corrected, but do you think that some damage to the winch has likely already occurred?
2. When flushing a Yamaha 115 using the onboard flushing port (motor not running), does it flush all parts of the cooling system? Or, is it necessary to use muffs with engine running? What about running the engine in a tub of water?

 

[kaelc]

Usually the flushing port will not be for when the engine is running so thermostat will not be flushed. Muffs on a hot day might do it.

 

[Flashman]

If you smelled burning electrical, damage has been done. More important question, is the damage serious enough to matter? Could be any number of things, maybe melted some plastic inside that's now hardened again and won't cause any trouble or could be motor winding insulation that will fail soon and destroy the motor. You could open it up and see if there's any readily apparent melted or burned components. Change those, otherwise it's probably internal to the motor. If it's the motor, the preventative action and action when it fails are the same, new motor so might as well just keep using it as is. Very little downside to putting the belt back the right way and forgot it ever happened.

 

[Rayvon]

I use the flushing ports on my Suzuki's as soon as I hit the dock when motors are still hot so that the thermostats should still be open. But flushing a cold engine may not work as well as Kaelc says. Gearheads correct me if I'm wrong.