[OMC-Boats] Some Thoughts on Justin's Cooling Issue

After thinking about your cooling issue some more today I'd offer the
following troubleshooting tips:

Water flow has an analogy with electrical current flow. In USAF
electronics troubleshooting, we were taught to always break the
circuit or path in roughly half. Make a check, verify and move "up" or
down the path.
Seems like that same approach can logically be applied to troubleshoot
cooling flow?

It seems you have described a situation where your tell-tale (pisser)
is barely dribbling, right? One pivot end-cap (Port) apparently shows
signs of water, while the Starboard side end-cap is relatively dry.

I wonder if you could partially restrict or block flow on the "good"
side and see if the flow increases or blows through any obstruction on
the weak side?

You could pull of the top cover of the intermediate housing, where the
hoses connect to the exhaust elbow and look to see if there are
passage obstructions between there and back to the pivot point?

As mentioned before there is the distinct possible of too much grease
clogging up the trunion/pivot water passages, where the intermediate
and vertical drives mate up.

There could also be an obstruction within one side of the vertical
drive (upper gearcase), but that seems unlikely. Another real
possibility is the impeller pick up tube and pickup screen mesh, which
may be partially clogged?

Further down stream you can check both elbows for obstructs. Just
remember both the elbow and the manifold(s) have three separate
passages: 1) Water supply, 2) Water return, and 3) exhaust gas.

Your problem seems to be on the supply side, before even getting to
the starboard exhaust elbow. The motor seems to be happy with a
reduced supply, but then it's not doing much but idling so far.

Lee
Received on Tuesday, 1 September 2009