Why do you block the lower water pickup in the nose in a dual water bravo drive ? and only attach the water in the side pickup ? I just bought a new 08 boat with bravo 1s 1.65 gears and was reading that you have to block off the lower water pickup. I'm getting to run my engines and need to flush them properly. Thanks

The only reason you would block off the lower nose holes is to reduce excessive water pressure.Boats with drives that are mounted high use the lower pick up and sometimes block the top holes.If your drives are deep and you run under 90MPH leave the holes alone.As for flushing i would either tee into the water pump inlet as i do or use a half drum.Flushing real motors with the garden hose thru the drive is no good.Hope all this makes sense.

Forget the last post, someone didn't read before posting.......................... Most flushing / run out of the water hook ups are intended for the standard side inlet style drives, if you DO NOT block off the low water pick-ups the water pressure bleeds off and you risk doing damage.

Just use a typical flush device and put some good old duct tape over the low pick-ups and you'll be fine. Remember that often water pressure in the hose will not provide enough flow to support much more than an idle RPM, so use some common sense here, don't try to rev the chit out of it while you're on the hose.

or you can actually buy the corerct flush attachment from mercury which comes with a set of ear muffs that connect to the garden hose and cover the sidw water inlets of the drive . and a strap which comes with a quick clasp for a ttachment and a specificly designed rubber cap for the 4 holes on the front of the bulett. and flush the engine the proper way if you dont have a strainer with a flush plumbed directly into it.

ragged edge, is right if you can plumb in a t before the raw water pump and install a fresh water flush sys. that a garden hose can be hooked to, and duct tape the low water pick up shut that seems to work the best for flushing. they make the low water pick up muffs for bravos but they are chit and dont seal u will more than likely put more wear on your sea water pump than any thing with those muffs. also makes winterizing easy, if you cant reach your block plugs.

duct tape works better then a mercury tool designed to work on a mercury drive?

you may need a better flush device.

mercury's, which i use on average 6-8 times a day during the season, works every time. and no blown impellers.

thanks alot everyone for the great advice, I did use duck tape for now and it worked fine. but I will pick up mercury's cup for the drives, and look into a more permeant flush system for the engines

Just read the post I ran my motor today unaware that I needed tape on the nose cone I just added the tee this winter I ran for about a minute there was water flow but it was low, Any damage caused by this? Engine temp stayed low, one manifold got warm to the touch but not hot ?? Should I repalce the impella? thanks

If you installed a tee before the sea water pump, the SW pump itself will pull the water from the hose. No need to worry about plugging the drive holes when a tee is used. Turn hose on full. Low water flow? Maybe your impellor is in need of replacement.

BTW, I only get 2 yrs max. out of my impellors. Just replaced them a couple days ago. 1 had a missing vane and 1 vane 1/2 tore. Other impellor was changed last summer on the water with a spare used one.

Ya Im gonna change that impella thanks for the quick responce