If you have sand, work from the T-stat housing back, throught the oil cooler, the fuel cooler. Sand will make it through the pump, but it doesn't do well, at least in my boat, past the fuel cooler.

And Have I mentioned that i would like to choke the %$it out of the rotten *&ck sucker that designed that low water pick-up

OK, was talking with someone this weekend about this.
He stated there is a plastic peice at the connection of the raw water hose on the inside of the transom mount.
Says there is a special tool to remove and install this.
Anyone know? what part #? I have looked on Bam's site and not totally sure what it is.

Out of curiosity, why are you trying to remove this piece??? What led you to this point??? Determine problem is in the drive plumbing??

The lead on this was by someone else's suggestion only.

I did a complete inspection of all the hoses, except the one in the transom assembly thats the last resort.

All hoses are fine, raw water pump and impellar are fine.
I removed teh thermostate and it looked fine, was new this season.
After removing the hose at the transom assembly I power flushed the hole back to the drive, was able to get a few small pebbles and some sand out
Put everything back together and will do a water test tomorrow, weather permitting. This test will be without the thermostat. If that goes well, I will install a new thermostat and try again. If it does not go well, the last resort of pulling the drive and checking the inner hose and insert will needed to be done. That will take away from my weekend run

I thought you were trying to remove that piece... Were you getting good water flow at the bottom of the outdrive when you were pumping water from impeller point back down into the drive??? I have a hose hookup for freshwater flushing the engine and before starting the motor, the hose water will backflush down the outdrive basically gushing out the bottom holes of the outdrive.... You really must have sucked a lot of something into the drive at some point... were you in any shallow areas, hit bottom, get stuck at any point with the boat??? If you were getting a strong flow at the bottom of the drive, going by your extensive flushing, I'd say you'd have to have it licked at this point.... have you ever removed a drive???

Iwas 'thinking' of removing that peice
I was getting good flow once the friend helping me stated there is no more rocks or sand coming out
I will be putting in a hose adapter and T block tomorrow
I have been wanting to do it for along time. Right now I have the hatch off and now is great time to do some maintenance on it tomorrow. Grease the coupler, steeting etc.
I will know tomorrow after a water test at the lake if all came clean.
I have personally never taken a drive off the boat. Done many Jet drives in the years past, but never an out drive.
Yes, I was in a shallow launch and have already done extensive and complete flushing on everything else.

Just let us know if you have to pull the drive... it's really easy with two persons. If you have tie bars and/or hydraulic steering, then there is a little more time involved..... and grease the two zerks in the drive shaft universals when your in there

Coupler... two grease fittings per coupler

Good luck! Hope all goes well!!!!

Hey, long delayed update!!!
Boat has been drydocked since this issue!!

however what I found out was that the Oil cooler was plugged!!!
Not just with impellar peices, but with small rocks/pebbles and other crap!!!
If anyone ever has a lack of water pressure and they say they backflushed everything, I would still take off the upper and lower hoses for the oil Cooler and have a look!!

Of all the passages on mine only three were clear!!!!!!!!

All is well now