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Hi Lake Norman Neighbor!
It will still move water but not enough to keep it cool....3 year old impeller needs to be changed.
The wear plate can be reused if it is smooth without grooves worn in it. Some models you can turn the wear plate over and use the other side.
I wish I would have seen this sooner as I work on Cobras and have done many manifold and impeller changes for 50 an hour labor.
Why do you think head gasket? Manifolds can leak internally and cause issues too..
If they were repaired due to freeze cracks I would be very suspect of them too...
Well, we pulled the heads off yesterday and sure enough both head gaskets were blown. We spent the morning, cleaning all the head and intake gasket surfaces, and checking the cylinder walls, which look real good. Turned the motor over by hand and it moves easy, nice and smooth the way it should. The heads are going to the machine shop this weekend and they are being checked over.
The bellows look good, not melted at all. So hopefully it didn;t fry any seals in the cooling system. From the time it was started up until it was turned off, it ran less than 10 minutes. Maybe just over 5 minutes.
Here's the story on the boat, my brother/best friend bought it 3 years ago. It needed a motor and outdrive. He's a very good mechanic and has an automotive repair shop here. He has some experience with boats, he's build a few over the years. He was planning on keeping the boat forever and did everything the right way with the rebuild. He had the exhaust manifolds repaired and there was no problem with them. The boat ran like a champ for the past 3 years, give the throttle a pump, turn the key, it fires right up and runs smooth as silk, every single time.
No problems what so ever.
Once he got into Lake Norman he got boat envy and bought a larger boat, a Baja. He sold me the little Sunbird for exactly what he had into it. I've done pretty good with it, got the shifter stuck in between gears once ( I learned better how to shift it and it hasn't happened again). Hit a rock with the prop last year, changed the prop and it was good to go.
Then right at the end of last season, the alternator went out and fried the battery. Got a new alternator and battery last year but the guys were lazy about hooking it up. Usually we winterize by running the outdrive in a tank of antifreeze and then pulling the drain plugs on the motor. But with the boat not running due to the alternator, we just pulled the engine plugs. At the time I did not know about pulling the plugs in the outdrive.
And the impeller plate looks to be in good shape, no grooves in it.
I have a custom paint shop here in Waxhaw and my bf has a an automotive restoration shop where they restore classic cars. So we are used to doing our own work and want to learn the right way to work on the boat.
Here's two examples of the kind of work we do. On the Firebird we replaced every panel on the car.