Sucked up wood debris, need advice on clearing - BF30A

[ztrain727]

Hello -

Yesterday we stupidly rowed through some really thick, nasty wood debris. It was a layer a several inches thick if mostly small wood chips with sand and mud. Given our setup, you cannot lift the motor clear out of the water so the raw water intake inevitably got some debris in it.

When we got back out to clean water, we cleaned the the intake and started up, but the engine was barely spitting and it started to die upon revving. I didn't think to put it in reverse. It was an emergency as it was dark by then and we were 20 miles from home, so I put it in forward and revved it hard. It kicked the debris and started spitting good, but I noticed we lost 2mph on our top speed and there was some surging at low speeds.

Should I take off the lower unit? I figured I probably damaged the impeller/possibly oil cooler.

Any advice would be appreciated

 

[Sea Rider]

Were sucked wooden debris in form of small matchwood pieces ? You can oly damage an impeller running at wot with both water inlets completely obstructed in a shor time and experience an overheat condition at slow speed at extended time period. Check anyway impeller for peace of mind and credit card as well.

If suspecting you have matchwood pieces inside cooling water passages, remove thermo, connect a water hose and flush crankcase for some minutes, water at high pressure should get rid of any inside obstruction. If flushing through lower water pipe whan leg is removed you'll find that thermo is closed and the cylinder head won't be conveniently flushed.

Happy Boating