Brad Zastrow

You have impeller parts stuck in the cooler or the hose. Back flushing is not that effective at getting the big parts out that get lodged. Take the hose off the oil cooler and grab the big chunks of rubber out.

Shah Mat

Thanks for the help guys...

Took oil cooler off and it has about 20 coat hanger size holes in it for the water to flow through. 30% of them was plugged up. Some of them had small shiny pebbles lodged (maybe from before I put the strainer on the boat) and others had the concrete like sand. I used a coat hanger and compressed air to clean them all out. Oil temps have always remained normal but it’s good to know its clean now......
Took ps cooler off and it was clear, it is made differently than the oil cooler. Just a 1" ring inside that the fluid flows through. If anything makes it past the oil cooler it will definitely make it past the ps cooler.
Took it to the river yesterday and idling out it was fine, 150* for about 5 min. Got on plane and after about a minute temp starts up again. Came off plane and looked at the exhaust, water coming out but didn't seem like as much as there should be. Idled back and the temp never came down off 180*. Put it back on trailer and took it to my dad's. Took all belts off and the bypass hose off the circulating water pump and spun the water pump by hand, seems ok. I can see the water trying to move through the bypass fitting. Then.... took the intake hose off the sea strainer (second time since I've had this problem) and shoved the garden hose in it. My dad didn't have a hose spigot so I crammed the hose in with a rag and sealed it the best I could with my hands. Told dad to turn the hose on and he said wait, let me put a pan under the drive pick up to see if anything comes out. Turned the hose on and (it was a metal pan)... plink.... plink plink. Little scale looking things came out. Looked like scab off an oyster shell-if that makes any sense. Very thin and almost transparent, about half the size of a dime. We flushed it several times and got some out each time.
Haven't put it back in the water yet for a test but I'm pretty confident I found the problem. My dad's water pressure is much better than my house, maybe I didn't have enough water pressure to flush them out.
My guess is these things were lying up inside a cavity between the nose cone (nose cone was added on by the previous owner) and the front of the drive and whenever I got on plane they would block the flow. When I took the boat out of the water they would fall out of place, but not out of the nose cone cavity. So the next time I put it in for a test, it would be fine at idle. As soon as I got on plane the water pressure would push the junk back in to a position that was obstructing water flow. That's why it wouldn't cool down when I came off plane.

Anyone have any luck taking a nose cone off a bravo? This thing is starting to piss me off. It looks like it is epoxyed on. I guess I will have to grind the epoxy off and sand it down to bare aluminum, then repaint the lower unit.

SkiDoc

iTrader: (4)

Glad you found it. Good job. I've removed one by hitting it with firm lateral strikes with a hammer.

paintman

I had nothing but probs with my nose cone...bought a complete lower end(bravo 1) off of an oso member for $600 and now works better than ever. Do you have side pickups or just at the tip of the nose cone -mine just had the tip of nose cone

ezstriper

I guess not all P/S coolers are the same...friends fountain had a simular issue, after cleaning the oil cooler a couple of times, we found a bunch or impeller pieces there....and it was made where stuff would not flow thru...

28Eliminator

WOW, that's a new one. It sounds like you may have the problem solved. Maybe that nose cone was holding all the extra peices inside. My lower is an IMCO and has the low water pickup built as part of the housing, but if I ever have that problem I will be looking to back flush the drive also.