Twice last season I filled my motor with sand due to my low water pickup. Once to avoid running over a stupid (although very pretty) young woman on a jet ski at a ramp, and the other putting the bow on the beach in the Grand River in Grand Haven, something I've done a million times without issue.

My question is, if I make a template from a standard drive, can I add a couple of holes to the lower? Blend them in a bit with a dremmel to allow smooth flow of water to them..... I have a raised x-dimension, and on my previous drive (which I grenaded several years ago) I filled the top 2 or 3 holes because I didn't want to suck air when trimmed up and running WFO. Never had any issues with water flow with that drive. I would only add probably 3 holes per side, the bottom 3 of course......can this be done? Should this be done? Will it keep the sand from being such an issue? I realize it probably won't stop all of it, but since water takes the path of least resistance, I figure that if the lwp starts to suck sand, the higher ones would allow water to flow instead of just sand.

Thoughts??? Anyone done this????

I was comtemplating the same thing. Any input appreciated.

I don't know about doing that to the drive, but I have sucked sand a few time's in my Sonic, it has the low water pickup's too. I have been told to put a thru hull pickup on. I havn't done it yet but from what I can see is that it wont be that hard to do and if you get the two peice one's it will be easy to adjust. I have two guy's I boat with all the time that have them. They have both watched me put in new impellers, I never see them do it.

Mike,

I have never seen it done first-hand, but I was going to buy a drive from a guy a couple of years ag who was going to plug the low water pickups and add the mid's by doing what you described. I ended up buying another drive that already had the mid's, so I never really found out. Seems like it should work, though, because it is the same internal passage. The stock ones actually have little vanes on them to help direct water flow, but I doubt if you really need these.

Were you planning on plugging up the lows, or just leaving them and letting it draw from both? Seems like the mids + the lows would serve the purpose of acting as a bypass if you were to drag the lows in the sand. Apparently the new Merc cases come with both, so i guess it works.

There was another thread a couple of months ago on this same subject. You might want to drag that one up and see if there were some good replies there.

I do believe you can do it, as you look at some drives that have both.

CheckmateF1 actually modified and over exaggerated the little channels that go from the front of the drive to the mid-pickup holes, and increased his water pressure from 9lbs to almost 20lbs.