You're right about the durability of the old ones ~ forty + years ago my then partner called me from up North and said "I dropped the outboard motor off my boat, it's still there, no recovery diver until to - morrow, what do I do next ?" .
'simple ~ go RIGHT NOW and buy a BIG trash can with lid and have it filled with water and ready when the diver brings the motor up, drop it into the can filled with fresh water, rope the lid down tight and bring it to the shop when you finish your vacation , no hurry, NO NOT ALLOW IT TO BE UN SUBMERGED ! ' .
It took me about 30 minutes to drain and clean it, get it running in the shop in a steel drum of water, he was still using it 25 years later, no damage .
When I was a kid in the 1960's I watched my dimwit middle brother fooling 'round in the Finger Lakes with a small Johnson outboard, slipping it from forward to reverse at sped, in time it backed itself right underwater.....
Pops was furious and told him to take it off the boat and hang to dry, of course it was ruined .
Some times children really *do* know more than the 'adult'
.
Pops was all wrapped up in being a world famous Oncologist and never listened to anything his children tried to teach him until the 1990's .
When you live on a farm you learn to save and salvage things that most just toss out because they don't really know what makes things tick .