I Just purchased a Johnson 35e77c short shaft together with a seized 35e77 long shaft. Between the two I have got the short shaft running keeping it a short shaft,130psi. Problem is it has serious overheating issues, laser gun shows 2oo deg .plus on upper head and exhaust discharge water is too hot to touch. water comes out of the tell tale only at an rpm higher than normal idle, cold coming out of holes on back of lower leg. Thermostat was broken. I replaced but that made no difference also ran motor without thermostat same result. I have removed water jacket and head cover plate cleaned water passage ways and flushed up and down water tube with garden hose got good water flow out of all openings. On my last attempt I sealed the water pump wear plate with gasket sealer (gaskets not available) and removed thermostat. It still ran not quite as hot but too hot to use. I noticed that when increasing the RPM not only did tell tale pump a good stream of water but the temperature dropped to a working level. I was contemplating using the wear plate from the spare motor as it seems to have less wear, but i noticed that the cutout on top of plate for the water to enter the pump housing is smaller .Would this create more pressure? Will wait for any comments before taking apart again. Thanks for any advice.