Air sucked into sea water system
 

Plane Silly,

Some interesting comments on the effects of air getting into the sea water system including low pressure:
http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/b...-pressure.html

Hey Tom,

Did you get a chance to check the drive passages?

Your Bravo drive currently has both a low water and a high water pick up, right?

Nope, haven't pulled the drive yet, I'm a lazy bum. My drive only has the side pickups.
The transom water pickup did not work at all, just like I was told. Got to change and impeller on the ramp at the lake.

OK. That is news. If you only have the side sea water pickups on the Bravo drive that is probably the reason for the low sea water pressure as others have atested . I do not know what to suggest to improve the situation w/o low water p/u on the drive.

I am looking at adding a nose cone with the low water pickup. Oddly enough, one of my hold ups is driveway clearance. The drive barely clears my driveway right now and a nose cone may hit.

I have no idea what the differences are between a Bravo drive housing with the additional low water pickup versus the one without the low water pickup. If the only difference is the four holes in the nose of the gear case i.e. there is the same internal passage way connecting the drive's nose to the side water pick ups it would seem that you could just drill the holes. Again, I do not know if that is the case or not.

What I would really like to do is swap out my 1.36 Bravo with just the side pickups for a 1.50 with both pickups.

Sounds like that is what you really need to do given the driveway clearance issue. Two birds with one stone as it were.

How far below the plain of the hull's botton running surface did you locate the water pickup opening? It does not look near deep enough from your picture. Maybe if you converted it to an adjustable water pickup like http://www.cpperformance.com/detail.aspx?ID=1160 or had someone modify your unit to make it adjustable you could adjust it deeper until you get sufficent water versus where you are at currently. You could cut off the current units down tube midway , OD sleeve the two pieces together with a split stainless tube and hose clamps, experiment with the pickup depth and when you find the correct depth have it all welded up permanent. Should be a lot cheaper than a drive conversion.

Bill,
Is that a picture of your pickup?
That pickup is going to run pretty dry sitting above the notch :eek: There's no water there when running :(

Dave