Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

I did spring maint. on my boat tuesday and got it ready for the summer, it ran great I threw some sea foam in it and ran it for about 20 minutes with no problems at all.

Today after I got my CD player hooked up I decided I would run it for a few minutes before I left, well once I did I ran it for about 2 minutes or less before I noticed no water was coming out of the "pee hole" and smoke seemed to be coming out of it more than usual, I dont know how much of that was sea foam though. Well I shut off the engine and the powerheads were pretty warm after less than two minutes of running. I took the hose off and put water back on it and started it again for about 15 seconds and there was smoke coming instead of water coming out of the hole in the bottom of the head where the water pumps it through to cool the engine, Is this pretty much mean I need to change the impellar, or is there anything else it could be?

I hope you didn't fry it. 2 minutes shouldn't, hopefully, I use weedeater line and make sure your not plugged up. I keep some under captains chair, just for this.

If you ran for 2 minutes without water coming from the tell tale I would at minimum pull the lower unit and inspect the impeller. I put in a new impeller every other year.

If you didn't trip the high temp beeper in 2 minutes, you had to have some water in the block. I have a gauge and I see that temp coming up pretty fast if it is not moving water. I agree I would look for a bug nest in that pee hole before I went too nuts about this.
Throwing an impeller at it is not a bad idea and while you have the foot off you might want to try back flushing through the thermostat hole. Water should come out everywhere. (foot, pee hole)
Then put in a new thermostat and gasket.

You can make an adapter for that with a short piece of a swim noodle. (the kids will never miss it)

when I first started my motor up, no water was coming out of the hole,
replaced impeller and thermostat and now it is. Thermostat seemed like it was stuck closed, letting very little water trough
-bb

These impellers can take a set from sitting around and not follow the shape of the can, seriously reducing the water flow. If you let your boat sit, it is worse than running it all the time.

A handy gauge is a water pressure gauge. It will give you the best insight into your water system you can get. You will instantly see things that are not apparent from just looking at the pee stream. It is pretty hard to tell the difference between a 5PSI "pee" and a 15 PSI pee just looking at it.

When I said 2 minutes it was probably no where near 2 minutes actually, it was probably under a minute, maybe 30 seconds I just said under 2 minutes to show it was a short period of time, I didnt think you guys would take it literally

I dont know when the last time my thermostat or impellar has been changed, it is very possible it has been 3-5 years as now that im learning more and more about boats I see the guy before me did nothing to it but change the spark plugs. When it was time to winterize he put some no heet in the gas and waited until it was warm and started it right back up. I know he never changed batteries, he never changed the foot oil so im sure he never changed the impellar or the thermostat, ive done all the other maint. I just have not changed those two things.
I would hope that it is only a "birds nest" however I have already taken the hose off that connects from the bottom of the head to the outside cover of the motor, it was clean I could blow through it, I took the little elbow off and checked it and it was clear. I can run some weed eater line up in the heads if you think that will make a difference, but you do agree that whatever the problem I am having is from either or the impellar or the thermostat? Is there anything else I can do to check it?

Greg it was not hooked up long enough for the alarm to go off, I noticed that smoke was coming out from places it doesnt usually come out so I went to cut the water off, and when I did I seen there was no water stream again maybe 30 seconds

It sounds like you've addressed the "easy" spots to detect an obstruction in the water flow. Assuming you were using muffs on the motor I'd suggest keeping it in neutral and pushing in on each side of the muffs while the motor runs. Sometimes the muffs don't provide enough of a seal to get enough water to the larger motors. I fooled with mine for a whole day last time before someone on here pointed this out. If that doesn't work change the impeller and possibly the thermostat. Sounds like it couldn't hurt anyway since it's been awhile.

I believe your right, im going to go ahead and change them both, i just wasnt really ready to buy anything new for it for a little while, hopefully I can get it to run for a week or two before I can do it. I just wanted to make sure that based on the problems I was having that no one could really think of anything else that I might have going on.

Where is a good place to buy the parts? do you use a local marina or do you guys order from ebay or something?

I would suggest that you change the theromstat and the water pump. I just buy my parts at a local small dealer in the next town. They all sell for about the same and it's not a lot of money for the parts.

My motor sat for about 4-5 years I think before I bought it,this is how thermostat looked:
took about 5 minutes to swap, the longest part was scrapping off the old gasket.



impeller was pretty straightforward too

I found videos on youtube to do both, not exactly the same, but it seems the mercury motors are about the same

-bb

My local Suzuki dealers seem to never have parts in stock, though they "can order them for me". Nah, I can do that myself cheaper anyway even with shipping. I use an online parts supplier in New Jersey that specializes in Suzuki. I'm sure Mercury owners on here can recommend something similar for that brand.

I called a place called "Pro Outboard" they had the impellar in stock, and the service man said they could order a Thermostat aftermarket that would be there tomorrow, he said there is no difference between that and the Merc one. Anyways the price was not bad at all $52 for the both, I looked on youtube and it looks easy enough for me to do.

Anyone suggest greasing the shaft or the inside of the water pump housing before reinstalling

GregF wrote:If you didn't trip the high temp beeper in 2 minutes, you had to have some water in the block. I have a gauge and I see that temp coming up pretty fast if it is not moving water. I agree I would look for a bug nest in that pee hole before I went too nuts about this.
Throwing an impeller at it is not a bad idea and while you have the foot off you might want to try back flushing through the thermostat hole. Water should come out everywhere. (foot, pee hole)
Then put in a new thermostat and gasket.

You can make an adapter for that with a short piece of a swim noodle. (the kids will never miss it)

Greg do you mean just placing that in front of the hole, and let her rip?

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