150 Mercury 2003 tell tail water supply

[waymerk]

Hi Guys,
Just bought this motor and boat... took it out all day (trial run).. runs great.. stated and stop all day.. ran for miles without any trouble... Starts right up hot or cold... My question----- On trial run I noticed time where tell tail was peeing water and a lot of times it wasn't... It never over heated all day.... Flushed motor when done and noticed no tell tail pee... Wanted to service motor so I replaced the impeller and housing.. (old 1 looked good) still not peeing with muffs.. Read a ton of stuff on this and hear that they don't always pee, especially at low RPM.. or when cold... or until thermostats open... so on and so forth... I have never had an outboard that didn't pee right from the start and this worries me that it doesn't... I don't want to do any damage to the motor and not comfortable running her without the pee... Thermostats and the poppet valve test good... Is this something I should be worried about or is it just a characteristic of these motors...

Thx

 

[Chris1956]

Re: 150 Mercury 2003 tell tail water supply

Likely a normal occurrence. My '93 has no telltale until thermostats open, which doesn't happen often on flusher device. Remove the cowling and trace telltale hoses back to thermostat covers. That should tell tale.....sic

 

[waymerk]

Re: 150 Mercury 2003 tell tail water supply

I disconnected the water lines from the thermostats and ran water from the hose into the like... all the lines are clear.... water pee out tell tail no problem... Thanks for the reply... guess it's just the way it is.. Just never had a motor that didn't pee from the start...

Likely a normal occurrence. My '93 has no telltale until thermostats open, which doesn't happen often on flusher device. Remove the cowling and trace telltale hoses back to thermostat covers. That should tell tale.....sic

 

[Texasmark]

Re: 150 Mercury 2003 tell tail water supply

My experience with this problem was with my son's late '80's 150. At the rear top of each bank of cylinders are the tstats. On his engine, the output of the stats were plumbed in series with an external 5/16" hose as I recall, maybe 3/8 and it went down to the midsection, below the block for discharge into the midsection and subsequently out the prop exhaust. Enroute was a tee and off that tee a hose went to the tell tale indicator...pee.

As you realized, for any measurable water to exit that tube and wind up in the pee stream, the stats have to be open. If not open, no water.

I thought the design sucked big time because I want pee immediately when I start my engine. So I disconnected the pee hose from where it was and connected it to the hose coming out the top center of the block, behind the flywheel which I am told goes to the high speed popoff valve below the block......follow the hose. I put a union in the existing line and put the tee that was there in the line I mentioned.

After doing that, as soon as the block fills with water (roughly 30 seconds after starting the engine) I get pee and know my cooling source is working....don't have to wait for an OT alarm if I have a problem after I am who knows how far from the ramp. Maybe in cold climates you have to have it as designed to lock the water in the block as long as you can to get it hot. But down here in TX. that isn't necessary.

Edit Comment: I have an '02 90 hp triple, basically half a V and my pee is plumbed off my exhaust manifold water jacket and I get pee as I stated, within 30 seconds of start up. Separate water circuit and not connected to the block cooling. So, if climate was the reason then why isn't my engine plumbed like that. I mean, pee is to determine the water pump is pumping. If you have to wait for the stats to open, what's the point? Really a stupid design and I will eyeball to eyeball the moron that did that design. Like if you have a stat problem, which I did on my first time out on a used boat, you have an OT alarm for that at low speeds. Above 2500 rpms the bypass valve opens and bypasses the stat and the alarm goes off.....till you slow down again below 2500 rpms.

HTH,
Mark