What are the disadvantages of a through the hull pick-up? My Bravo drive has a nose cone with a low water pick up that was installed by the previous owner. The Potomac River is not a good place to have that type of set up and it has caused me several problems in the past. I don't have a strainer yet, but all the problems I have encountered it wouldn't have helped anyway. The most common problem is seaweed or other trash in the intake hole in the front of the cone.

The biggest disadvantage would be drilling the hole and hitting a stringer! Other than that, I think the transom pickup is the way to go.

drill inside-out.....

Thru hull water pickups create alot of drag=loose MPH.If your X-dimension isnt too high i would run the water through the drives into strainers.If the drives are high and you use the thru hull pickup it works fine into strainers too except for a loss of some speed.

Im not sure the part # I have is anygood but I am running a transom mount pick up......old school merc.... #88845a 1 and using the drive pickup as a cooler for the upper gear set....it is something I saw on some race drive at st. pete this past summer

A friend of mine had the same problem with his checkmate here on the fox river. He installed a thru hull pickup to the right of the drive about even with the sea pump. he has never plugged up since. It did cause some additional drag, but very little and he is very happy with the reliability. I do suggest a water pressure gauge if you go the other route, I know mine has saved me many sea pumps.

I have one drive with dual water pu(2002) the other is a 95 with single side up. The LWP has caused me more grief than I'd like to talk about . Twice I got wood jammed thru thr LWP and it got caught in the hose going thru the transom assy. so a strainer wouldn't have helped anyway. Had to remove drive and back flush the line coming into the pump.
Water pressure guages saved my a$$ . You see this BEFORE the temp even rises.
I plan to plug my lower and just use the side p.u.

That is what I'm looking for. Nothing worse than leaving the restaurant at 8pm on Sunday night and having to jump in the water with a coat hanger to clean out the intake hole.

Anyone have a picture of what a through hull PU looks like?

I got mine from IMCO.$112 PLUS SHIPPING Its mounts to the back and its adjustable.part #wp-38a. www.imcomarine.com then the California store then performance hardware, you will still need to install a strainer and a shut off valve before it so you can clean it out and not sink, but you wont get wet. I did have the imco 38CL tube type,hated it the tube was not against the transom and stuff would get wraped around it,no good.The wp-38A is against the transom so nothing gets stuck but water.

As far as debris, with the IMCO's we machine the bullet to accept a screen , made from s.s . This tends to alleviate the problem of clogging and also too much p.s.i issues on faster boats.