Home › Forum › Ask A Member › Advice needed on shipping › Re: Advice needed on shipping
Yeah Jim, that’s why I won’t hand over the job of packing to a shipping company. Some might have success with them. But I feel leery about having them do it. Even though they bear the responsibility of damage, you still might have an unhappy buyer on the other end because they weren’t as as careful or as thorough as I would have been. And then you have the claims mess, etc.
I once bought a ’56 Johnson 10 horse on eBay and the seller had USPS pack it and ship it. Well, their idea of sufficient packing was to just fill the box with styrofoam peanuts! That’s no protection against a 70 lb. motor from shifting around in the box. It could have been a lot worse but it ended up breaking the inner hood stud for one of the bumpers, and it broke the throttle handle. That handle sticks out at an angle and is vulnerable during shipping unless it’s protected or cushioned somehow. That’s why I like to remove them if I’m going to ship a motor.
That’s the same reason I tell guys who buy a motor from me if they’re going to lay it on that side, (which is preferable to the gear shift side), you have to put a block of wood underneath the pivot point of the throttle handle, or a bunch of rags, a blanket, anything to get the pressure off that handle and allow it to move freely on its side. Otherwise, with it sticking out at an angle like that, it’s taking all of the weight of the motor, bouncing around in the back of their pick up, and it’s bound to break.