In little tricks on how to get water into a motor with the outdrives off?

Locate the water hose where it comes of the gimble on the inside. Then once you found it , unclamp it, pull it free and stick the garden hose in it.

Or just get a length of inch and a quarter hose make a hose adapter and your and your set for ever, all you need to do is loosn pump intake clamp pull hose , slide on new hose and done. Same idea just far more accessible in my bilge.

it depends on what you have and water impeller pump location and or crossover installed or if this is an alpha or OMC drive because impeller location is in the drive itself. Another example would be a Mercruiser with Alpha drive off and has a cross over - that changes everything - correct

So what is your app and set up ???. I see no info about that in your post inwhich makes it very hard to give you a correct pin point answer and I have no idea what on earth you have along with set up.

my only guess is you have a 1988 Baja and that was the year when the Bravo first came out so many 1988 boat models did not even have a Bravo for that year and back.

I had a 88 Baja..yes it had a bravo on it. Current boat is a 89 formula 311 bravo boat..

On my 311 I would just stuff the hose in the water pump inlet hose hole in the sea strainer and let her eat. I also would close the gate valves for the water pickups (you may not have that with Bravos) but I had forgotten to do that once and it didn't make a bit of difference.

Not trying to hijack your thread just a quick related question, If running motor on stand would you put the pump intake hose in large bucket with water hose refilling the bucket or put the garden hose in the pump intake hose, eliminating the bucket idea?
Thank you and sorry for the hijack.

I just jam the hose into a piece of hose hooked to the inlet of the water pump and call it a day. It's enough volume for what I do running a motor on the floor.

many many years ago when I finally got smart about this stuff I made adapters that you can run the engine on the water hose inside the boat or on a engine stand and made another set adapters that you can run the engine on the water hose by hooking up to the external transom assembly.

if you are by yourself alot of times jamming the water hose and hose clamping it for the water hose engine side and turning the water on makes for water everywhere until you start the engine and sometimes even then water is still leaking all over. I ended up making the adapters that work very well. Maybe will expand on this but maybe could even bring these to market. Hmmm Look for them down the road possible.

Made one that works well. Got a "U" shaped piece of 1 1/4" hose from autozone. Then picked up electrical conduit fittings (gray PVC) from Home Depot which reduce it down to where a one foot section of garden hose can clamp on. Then on the other end put a clamp on female hose connector and a small garden hose valve that screwed into it. Just remove the "IN" hose from the pump and connect this adapter. Then connect your garden hose to the on-off valve end of this adapter. This works great for one person and has no leaks. Keep the valve in the off position on the adapter and turn on the faucet on the house full blast. Then you get in the boat and turn on the valve on the adapter slightly to keep the impeller wet. Then start the engine and and open the valve fully once it starts. This works very easy when your doing it by yourself as you can control the hose right there in the boat with you. Pretty much what your talking about making BUP.