Outboard ran without water for about five minutes

[jimmbo]

a bit of info about Impeller abuse

 

[Mc Tool]

One of them things , you should at least check the impeller , but once your that far in you'd be silly to not replace it while your in there

 

[crazy charlie]

if there was some water on the impelled it might be ok that might of lubed it enough and that is a big question. If it was me and water is coming out like it use to with the same pressure. There is still a impeller and water cooling is working. If not that old, You may find out after a day of work the impeller you replaced is normal for a impeller with that age. That what i think.

WOWWWW!!! With that kind of logic, it is clear to me that you have never owned or serviced a boat with an outboard motor. Thats what I think

 

[Lou C]

5 min is a very long time without water, I'd change it for sure. If these fit your motor, I am a big fan of them, I find them to work better than the fancy dual inlet ones. Those can have cups that are made of thicker rubber that's too stiff. The Merc/Quicksilver ones are made of thinner more flexible rubber, that seal better and the rod and clamp prevent them from slipping off.

 

[Mc Tool]

5 min is a very long time without water, I'd change it for sure. If these fit your motor, I am a big fan of them, I find them to work better than the fancy dual inlet ones. Those can have cups that are made of thicker rubber that's too stiff. The Merc/Quicksilver ones are made of thinner more flexible rubber, that seal better and the rod and clamp prevent them from slipping off.
View attachment 405183

And even the good ones are problematic as the rubber hardens with age .
I havnt seen one like these before tho.

 

[sparklingwaterbubbles]

Your 2nd sentence in your 1st BIG mistake. Typically running a motor in a drum /barrel of water is a pretty safe method .However you have proven my statement to not be 100% true. A "bin" aint a barrel/drum or landscaping pail which is what it should have been running in if not using muffs ..When running a motor out of a body of water ,"starting some other tasks" is a really really bad idea and what I would refer to as careless. You have a 1985 Force motor that either you or someone else has taken extremely good care of since it was still running and in use. A very rare find, so you owe it to the motor to take more careful care of it. I would recommend an entire water pump kit and not just an impeller service. If your compression #s are accurate ,You got very lucky here....VERY lucky..Best of luck on this and let us know how this goes.Charlie

I appreciate your candor here. The incident had me feeling sick for the exact reasons you described. My earmuffs don’t quite fit or stay on this thing, so I resorted to a big storage bin until this happened. I have my eyes peeled for a sturdier container.

Amazon got the new impeller to me in two days, and I had a nice dry day to go change it out. I had it done and all buttoned back up after about an hour. I took it out to the lake and buzzed around. It peed and performed well. After a half hour of that, the knot in my stomach went away.

Oddly enough, I just replaced the whole water pump in October. You are right that I was careless in this incident and I appreciate the fatherly scolding.

 

[sparklingwaterbubbles]

5 min is a very long time without water, I'd change it for sure. If these fit your motor, I am a big fan of them, I find them to work better than the fancy dual inlet ones. Those can have cups that are made of thicker rubber that's too stiff. The Merc/Quicksilver ones are made of thinner more flexible rubber, that seal better and the rod and clamp prevent them from slipping off.
View attachment 405183

Okay that’s something I’ve never seen before. Thank you for showing me that.

 

[sparklingwaterbubbles]

One thing to remember when running the motor in some kind of container, I use a 96 gal trash can, is to not let it run too long. After 10ish minutes or so the water starts to heat up from the exhaust but I also think it's the best way to flush the motor.

Okay thanks for that tidbit. I hadn’t thought of that.

 

[sparklingwaterbubbles]

Maybe you got away Lucky, but time will tell, redo the Compression Test after about 20 hours on the Engine

Can I ask how those 20 hours might make the difference?

 

[sparklingwaterbubbles]

120 psi cold at cranking speed on a 2/ is good . Some older engines I have seen as low as 85 psi and they still ran fine .... down on power a bit but still quite reliable and usable

Thank you!

 

[sparklingwaterbubbles]

Me too on the impeller. On replacing the impeller, Dad had a 1957 Scott Atwater 10 HP that I played with quite a bit. I had a 55 gallon drum in which I ran it usually. Sometimes I would just have it sitting on its storage rack and fire it up for a bit. I had to have a melted rubber mess for an impeller but I never changed it (never knew to change it) and the engine never seemed to care.

I was fishing a local river one day and motoring right along. All of a sudden I heard a bang, looked around and the only thing holding the lower half of the mid section to the rest of the engine was the shift rod. There used to be a railroad trestle across that river and at the time I was there, the tops of the cut-off pilings were just far enough below the surface (murky water) to not be seen.

So I get things home and one day I tore the engine down....my first experience with overhauling an engine. I had seen crank shaft-rod "babbit inserts on 4 stroke engines but never got into a 2 stroke. So, I am at the disconnect the connecting rods from the crank portion of the teardown and out come the needle bearings all over the floor....never found them all......How was I to know that 2 strokes have better designs to allow them to run on fuel oil mix.....24:1 in those days.....quart of oil to 6 gallons of gas. Needless to say, it got put in a box and set up on a shelf. Don't recall what happened to it.

Holy cow. There’s a learning experience!

 

[jimmbo]

Can I ask how those 20 hours might make the difference?

If the Cylinder/Piston was damaged, the Damage will increase over time

 

[sparklingwaterbubbles]

If the Cylinder/Piston was damaged, the Damage will increase over time

That makes sense, thank you.

 

[ChooChooSnakeMan]

I put my 85 Force outboard in a big bin of water and fired it up, then started some other tasks while it idled. About three minutes later, it died. I thought nothing of it, and started it again. A few seconds later, it died, and I started it again.

Then I climbed out of the boat and realized the hose had slipped out of the bin of water, and the bin had also cracked. It was running dry. I held the crack shut and filled the bin back above the intake level. That took about thirty seconds. It started peeing again and the idle increased. The pee stream was also steamy, but it also was freezing outside.

I got back in the boat and turned it off. Twenty minutes later, it fired back up without hesitation and peed like normal. There was less steam. It idled strong. About five minutes later I shut it off.

From what I described, does it seem like any damage was done?

I agree, replace your impeller at a minimum. I used a garbage can once to try to run my Yamaha 250SHO. I filled it with water and started the outboard. It cranked right up but didn't start peeing right away which wasn't unusual for the SHO. It is a low pressure high volume system. Anyway it hadn't run but maybe a minute or two when I got an audible alarm for overheat. I immediately stopped the engine. My mistake was that my garbage can wasn't tall enough to get the water level over the water intakes right under the cavitation plate. I mistakenly thought as long as the lower water intakes were under water that the engine would suck the water up and prime the water pump. I learned this is not so. I pulled the lower unit and even though the engine had only ran for a minute or so and most of the lower unit was under water I found that my impeller was a mess of melted rubber. From that point on I just used muffs or trailered to a close ramp and backed the trailer in to fire it up to make sure all was good to go at the beginning of each season. Good Luck

 

[Lou C]

Impellers do not "suck" up water they move water that floods the impeller housing. So for an outboard to be run in a barrel or tub, the water has to be over the level of lower unit as high as the impeller housing is inside the lower unit. If you can use muffs that fit right, it will force water into the impeller housing. And if you run it in a barrel or tub, the exhaust will heat the water after a while so you want to keep adding cool water so it doesn't overheat.

 

[cyclops222]

Trash cans KILL motors.

 

[Lou C]

When I run my little Suzuki DF 2.5 in a garbage pail (no muffs fit these little mini motors) I keep the hose in the pail with the water running, the water stays pretty cool that way.
that generator behind it, I had to run it for 2 weeks during Hurricane Sandy! You couldn't buy gas because the stations had no power, so I wound up siphoning gas out of the boat, which lucky for us was full (40 gallons).

 

[airshot]

Trash cans KILL motors.

Big motors yes, but have used trash cans for little motors for over 50 years. You must leave the garden hose in the can or be standing watch closely !!
Small motors, especially those that have no gear shift will empty a trash can quickly. Unless you have a really large or specially built tub for larger motors, you can't beat a good set of muffs !

 

[mike_i]

Why would you say that? I've been flushing my F150 in a 96 gal trash can for years and did the same with my old 175 2 stroke with no issues.

Trash cans KILL motors.

 

[airshot]

Why would you say that? I've been flushing my F150 in a 96 gal trash can for years and did the same with my old 175 2 stroke with no issues.

I think he is referring to those that don't pay close attention to what they are doing. Folks get busy and don't realize the water level in the can has dropped to low or it runs to long and the water gets to hot. I use to use a trash can until I got some good muffs. Still use a can for small out boards that can't use muffs. Using a can is fine for those that pay close attention....however...I think that people no longer pay close attention like they use to.....we have been come a disposable society....or we blame mfgrs for our own lack of attention !