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NOVICE & BOAT NEW to ME

I was able to change the starboard engine's sea pump impeller/housing right away, but the port side simply shredded before I had a chance to change it (I was busy chasing a warm starboard engine).

When they shread, you need to find the pieces that came off, you do not want them plugging up or even slowing water flow through cooling channels. I had to pull all the hoses, examine every water entry point, then having to wiggle out pieces of rubber that were really wedged in hard places to get at. Many pieces of rubber remained lodged in the housing, many more were wedged inside the oil cooler (very uncomfortable to get at). I suspect a few smaller pieces exited when water that drained while disconnecting hoses so I have a bilge to sift through looking for pieces (I pulled the thermostat housing and disconnected all hoses). It would also be possible for bits to have flown through the cooling system and exited.

Just to be safe, as I re-assemble things I will use a moderately high pressure hose to flush out everything I can in the water circulation system. I will also pull the drain plugs and give it a good top down and bottom up bath (shooting water up into the drain holes and down through hoses and thermostat housing). After doing this, if there are clearly missing pieces, you can also pull the circulating pump and see if the are stuck in the pump or in that part of the block you can access with the pump removed. It is also going to be possible that they made their way into the exhaust manifolds. My experience has been that taking these off is hard, and putting them back on is even harder (when done while the engine is in the boat..and far worse with dual engines). Before taking these off I would certainly spend a bit of time pulling the drain plugs on the manifolds and flushing these to see if you can get any rubber out or get it close enough to a drain plug that you can use tweezers to pull pieces out.

Needless to say, chasing pieces kinda sucks.

Anyways, just a reminder, stuff like this can be avoided or you can push your luck until your engines cannot cool properly - this sort of thing that happens you take your boss or other VIP out for a ride...or worse yet, your mother in law

disclaimer - obviously engines are configured differently so parts of what I mentioned may not apply to your rig, but the concepts should.

This is the simple reason I changed the impellers every spring. They are a PitA to do, especially twins but far easier to do that this...ugh.