The good, the bad, the ugly- Summerization 2004

[M3Fan]

Well, the boat came home the other day from storage, and I was delighted to find out it fits PERFECTLY in the garage of my new home. The summerization went very smoothly. After getting everything ready to go, including glassing over a small hole in the fiberglass muffler, I got ready to hook up the hose and fire her up. I have a small valve on the end of the hose to shut the water off, and after cracking it slightly, water sprayed out appropriately. Hooked up the hose and fired the rig- it started on the first crank. I let it run for 5-10 min until the temp slid past 160- Then I shut it off completely. Turns out the hose was kinked- Cracking the valve let water spray out, but once the valve was open all the way, it was just a small trickle. Needless to say I'm fairly terrified- The oil was still cool to the touch, so that is good. Also the fiberglass muffler was only slightly warmer than usual. Of course the exhaust manifolds were hot to the touch. I hope I just escaped with a smoked impeller- I doubt it survived 5 minutes dry. Anybody have this happen? I didn't fire it up again because I didn't want the cold water to screw up the hot block/heads. Again, it wasn't that hot- the oil was still cool, but I am still worried.

[skinautique]

put your hand on the back of the impeller the next time you fire it up. If it is too warm to touch, you know you aren't getting water in there. If it is cold, your impeller is working. The thermostat housing should cool off next and then the manifolds. Just monitor the temps by the feel on your hands at those various places. More than likely, you would hav only fried the impeller. Doubt you did much more than that. Good luck and keep us posted.

[M3Fan]

The rig lives. I pulled the impeller, still like new. Fired her up (with no kinks this time) and viola- ready for some serious skiing this summer.

[tryan]

i would still swap out the impeller.

good move on not dumping the cold water on her. 8)