Hey guys! My 04 232 496 has 80 hours on it and Im fairly new to the boat. The previous owner used to use duct tape to hold the muffs on when flushing the engine which I thought was ridiculous. I just recently change the impeller thinking that would solve the problem but it hasn't. So with these Bravo ones do you honestly have to tape the holes up and tape on the muffs to get the thing to flush properly? I've owned Alpha ones and Bravo 3''s on other boats but never had this issue. Any help on this would be great

Also I changed the gimbal bearing and obviously had to put new leg oil in and topped up reservoir. All the fluids are up on everything but I get an alarm going off with the key turned on but not started. The alarm still stays on with the engine running. Any ideas??

Cheers!!!

If you have a dual pickups on your outdrive then yes you need to duct tape the lower ones shut. If this is the first time starting the boat since it's been in the water I've heard that getting the sea pump to prime can be an issue. The easiest fix for this is to start the boat at a ramp. The alarm is probably the water pressure sensor throwing a code since you weren't pumping water it should go away once you get water pressure.

My '02 with the 6.2 Bravo 1 drive has both side and lower nose water pick-up intakes. When running the boat on muffs, I turn on the hose with muffs and water goes in the side intakes and out the lower nose intake. Sometimes when I start it the impeller draws water and water stops coming out the lower intake, sometimes not and I need to put my hand over that to force water into the impeller. I've never had to do more than that, no tape. The 496 might be a different animal.

Thanks for the replies! Yeah while running when I put the muffs on the side inlet the water shoots out the lower front inlet. I don't remember but I guess the alpha ones and Bravo 3's don't have the lower front inlet which results in them flushing without issue? A bit of a head scratcher that Mercruiser would be okay selling these when they were new telling customers to use duct tape?

Any one have ideas on topped up fluids and and having the alarm go off? I did the gimbel and added new gear lube. That's all that's changed and was runnng fine at the end of the last boating season.

Cheers

I always had to tape off the DWP pickup holes on the nose when using muffs on the side holes. Otherwise, it sucks air - and will likely destroy your impeller depending on what lubricant you used in it during install.

Merc makes a flush attachment to block off the LWP ports. My Velocity has a transom mounted flush port and I still use masking tape on my drive's intake ports. What was the condition of the inside of your seawater pump housing? If it's worn, even with a new impeller you will have problems.

Your engine pcm needs scanned to see what fault is thrown. Is it a steady beep or two beeps per min?

I have a dwp bravo one and never had to put tape over the front pickup using the ears. Maybe I just got lucky.

Is the pumped scored on the front and back of impeller? That is a very common problem with the 496.

You did get lucky --- very lucky. For DWP --- We used bright colored duct tape --- tape the bullet nose completely off. The reason for the bright color tape was a reminder to remove the tape when we were done. That nose cap Merc sells does not work as well as the tape method.

side water pick ups running on the water hose --- these are the best muffs for all Merc apps by far. I have been using them since they came out many years ago. Keep them out of the sun - store in room temp and do not drag them across the ground hooked to the water hose, reason they will last 15 years min

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