Pulled up on the beach in Grand Haven channel like I've done a thousand times before and when I left I had no water out of my exhaust. Pulled back up on the beach and removed the hose from the pump to the oil cooler and it was packed full. Again. And the hose from the cooler to the t-stat housing was also pretty full of sand. Back flushed everything (filled my bilge with sand, again). Started it back up and got plenty of water out the exhaust but I now have an exhaust leak in the center of my intake manifold to head (at the gasket) on the port side. Must have gotten pretty hot. I figured this out becuase when back flushing the motor I spilled some on the intake and it was bubbling (not boiling, but air bubbles coming up thru the water). Oh well. Nothing smelled burned, no hoses look or feel bad so I'm sure that a new set of gaskets and I'll be fine. Guess I'm turning wrenches after work again this week. Getting tired of this!!!!!!!

But the races were awsome!!!!!

NA --------I'm going back to read me latest issue of Family and Performance boating.

One word, STRAINERS. Either Marine Machine or Teague for really trick pieces. Gill will also do the trick, cheap insurance.

i have eddie marine strainers and they do not stop sand, do any others? i got them for that purpose and wasted $800, beware, but they sure look cool!!

Yep, I plugged mine full of James River mud last year at the Richmond Radar shootout. We took the thermostat off, and you could spoon out the mud. All ran fine after we disassembled, and flushed out the freeze plugs. I had a bilge full of muddy water, all that the bilge pumps would not pull out. It was OK until I had to cross two wakes off of two tug boats in a narrow channel. The boat hit so hard, it COMPLETELY splattered the ENTIRE bilge & motor with mud. It was a HIDEOUS mess.

I don't know of any strainers that will take sand out, the screen is to pourous to filter that small, the ones I have looked at would only work for bigger stuff, but who know's something new pops up every day!

I've plugged my strainers full of sand, twice. I don't think that it is the screen size as much as the way the water swirls in the strainer.

That sucks, man. We were just talking about that before we left there, too. How far did you go before you found out and how do you backflush your cooling system in the middle of a river? Hope I never have to do that but, just in case I'd like to know.

I have had the same problem and am looking at going to a Teague transom mount offshore water pickup and a sea strainer, even though the strainer woun't handle sand, you shouldn't pick any up with the transom mount pickup, it's to stop trash in the water, leaves, plastic etc