I have been boating for several decades and did something unique today. I was running my 21 foot pontoon boat on the milwaukee river where I live and managed to get stuck while going slow over a very shallow gravel bar composed of small gravel. I had the engine tiled up but still getting good water and ran the engine hard in forward and reverse a few times to get unstuck. I pulled to a new spot and noticed little to no telltale coming from my 40 hp evinrude. I shut the engine off and raised ti up to look over the prop and skeg. There were a few rough edges , but nothing horrible. I then restarted and had a strong telltale and headed for deeper water at about 15 mph and after a few minutes noticed a different sound from the outboard. I noticed little water coming out and limped about three miles back to my dock. A steady few drips to crummy light stream was there but not the usual hard stream of water that I have come to expect.
The engine is mid to late 80's and had been gone over by an excellent shop that replaced the impeller and themostat two years ago. they also replaced many seals at the same time. the bill was 1200 dollars and the outboard has been running great since then.
I have not yet changed out an impeller myself, and currently do not have the use of a trailer to pull the boat out of the water and mess with it on land at this time. The water coming out is cool, but not very much.
What would you do while the boat is in the water ?? do you think I just got some junk in the telltale ???? or maybe clogged up the impeller ??? is that that easy to do ??? I have a cheap pressure washer and a hose clamp to run the outboard out of water. should I try just spraying everything out ??? Thanks for your help. I have fixed some big problems on boats, but not anything like this so far. thanks
The engine is mid to late 80's and had been gone over by an excellent shop that replaced the impeller and themostat two years ago. they also replaced many seals at the same time. the bill was 1200 dollars and the outboard has been running great since then.
I have not yet changed out an impeller myself, and currently do not have the use of a trailer to pull the boat out of the water and mess with it on land at this time. The water coming out is cool, but not very much.
What would you do while the boat is in the water ?? do you think I just got some junk in the telltale ???? or maybe clogged up the impeller ??? is that that easy to do ??? I have a cheap pressure washer and a hose clamp to run the outboard out of water. should I try just spraying everything out ??? Thanks for your help. I have fixed some big problems on boats, but not anything like this so far. thanks
