Replacing water impeller on 175 mercury - water pump body assembly

[jes100fish]

When I took off the water pump body assembly I noticed that the top where the drive shaft went through the assembly that it had a lot of hard plastic in it like it got hot and melted. Should this area be clean or have a seal in it? or is this normal?

Again thanks

[j_martin]

Not normal.

In the instructions, it'll have you put a bead of silicone on the divider plate of the LU. If you miss that, the exhaust sorta melts things around the water pump.

A trick about that. Use a good silicone, like permatex RTV blue, and put a real thin coat of 2-4-C on the mating surface of the mid. Next go-round it'll stay in good shape and be reusable.