TOPIC: WTH

What the heck happened? The good Dr. Frankenmerc and I replaced the impeller,housing,etc when we transferred parts from my skeg-less lower unit to good housing that Thom had last spring. When we last parked the boat I noticed and noted that the pee stream was getting hotter than normal when we were flushing out the engine after a cruise in saltwater. A few weeks ago I fired up the mighty tower with the hope that the Mercury gremlins had blessed me and cured the situation. No such luck and worse yet NO pee stream at all.I shot compressed air up the telltale with no improvement. In fact I heard a lot of air coming from the water intake holes. Looked at the water intake portion of the lower unit to find few bits of rubber in the holes. Off with the lower unit and this is what was left of the New (never ever worked) impeller with very low hours of usage. Did we suck something up? Will we ever really know what happened?

Melanie

Sorry to hear about the impellar. I do have a 115 lower unit I would loan you if you have questions about that one. I think i coated the last impellar I changed with vasoline when I installed it. Clint

Many thanks Clint. I picked up a new impeller on Saturday and changed it out along with another upper housing I had stashed away. My main concern now is how much of this material got up into the engine block cooling passages. I've run it 20 minutes or so for the past 4days on the muffs checking the stream for any evidence of heating up. So far so good. I will be working late today but hope I can get her into the water to really test.

Are you up for going out this weekend?

Melanie

That really stinks Melanie, WTH is right! I wonder if it was a genuine Merc part or aftermarket? It sure destroyed itself, whatever brand it was. (Short of a razor blade getting into the water pump, what else would cause that kind of mess?) Best wishes that is the end of your troubles with the issue.

Edit: NOT questioning the good Doc's methods or parts, I'm sure it was a freak parts failure or something! Immense respect to Thom here, okay!?>

looks like you hane most of it in the pic.

Hmmm....thinking this today.You had to suck up a hard twig, "something", to do a real bend, the blades, and trashed. As I know the "Doc", ..(lives 20 miles from me), and know he does the finest on "anything, IL6".
Now, on worrying on into the motor? Seems to me, that impeller went fast, and nothing was pushed into the block. Don't sweat it, as seems ya got darn near 100% in the pic. And you can do laser heat (best thing made!) point and shoot, Harbor freight, under $40 now. Look around the block running, temps. I think you will be fine..wish the best.

I hope no one thinks I was insinuating that this resulted from the work done by the good Dr. For the record I supplied the Sierra water pump kit. Thanks to Thom I had the confidence to tear into this and complete the work in just under 2 hrs.A good portion of that was a bit of head scratching wondering WTH.

Robby, I envy you only living 20 miles from Thom.My Fluke meter has a temperature probe attachment that I used for a/c work. So far so good.

The only impeller I've ever seen self-destruct in that manner was in a 40hp Evinrude I had serviced, back in the mid-Eighties. Sierra had been having problems with their impellers and they fully covered the rebuild under warranty.

You might be doing the company a favor by reporting the problem to them. I don't see anything that you or Thom could have possibly done to achieve that type of damage.

The typical type of self-destruction you'd see is when the motor has been run dry, but then you'll also see signs of the plastic pump body overheating, burnt pump plate/insert and burnt rubber.

There don't appear to be any signs of overheating in the pics.

After that, I'd certainly be inclined to replace with a genuine Merc part. Far as I know, both Merc and Sierra do warrant their impellers for at least a year, but you'd have to check their policies on coverage for engine damage from a proven bad impeller.

HTH & better luck now that we actually have a Summer Boating Season up here in the PNW.............ed

p.s. if things go well I may be doing a Pilgrimage to the Good Dr. Frankenmerc's domicile this week!

Yea, I know what they look like when somebody ran it without water! This one was still pumping water, but not much.

Sorry to "corrupt" your thread with non-Merc pics Melanie.

PS - Somebody please tell Thom I said hello next time you talk to him. Really miss him being around on here!

On Thom, seems he has really got a grip on the "retired" thing. Last talked him, still dealing with the back health issues, but he still seems always, "in the shop". Had another big shop built (his son built it) and guess thats the latest project, besides messing with the boats and motors. Guess his pretty busy too, with answering email questions, selling/buying, heck, I referred 3 people to him wanting motors. Guess not a lot of extra time to do forums. I need to stop out there soon too. Have some stuff I need to give him. Plus being summer, never enough time!