imq707s

I ran the motor for around 20 min. on the garden hose, and then I pulled the thermostat housing and didn't find and peices up there. I did see a few small chunks that came out of the exhaust, but they were only the size of a BB. I ran the boat at the lake last sunday and it stayed as cool as can be.

candyman35

imq707s,

You need to back flush the system to get the old impeller out of the coolers. On the bravo drive you remove the inlet hose at the thermostat housing and attach a garden hose. Then you remove the hose from the seawater pump and let the water flow out 5-10 min. I'm not sure which hose you would remove with the alpha. My guess is the hose coming from the drive.

Dan

imq707s

What "coolers" are you talking about? I think that the only cooler that I've got to worry about is the power steering cooler. The only place I can think of where small pieces of rubber would get caught would be in the thermostat houseing. Everything else is very large diameter tubeing. I'll check on the backflushing idea. Thanks.

Mbam

On an Alpha the pieces of the impeller (if they are on the big side)usually wind up trapped in the water passages in the upper housing of the drive. A little smaller and they will make it to the PS cooler. This is a big pain, but you need to follow the water flow and find all the pieces. Play detective, find the pieces and account for all of them. If they make it past the drive check the power steering cooler. The only way to really check it is to pull the water hose off the inlet side and look inside.

If they are small enough to make it past the PS cooler they are usually too small to cause any trouble. Phantom fragments may cause mystery overheating down the line. Back flushing as Dan suggested is a good idea, but unless you have a lot of volume and pressure from your garden hose don't count on it.