Overheating at idle, cool as a cucumber at speed

[l008com]

LOL apparently it's in the photo I posted above haha.

 

[l008com]

Ok I replaced the impeller and I'm trying to reinstall the lower unit, but I can't get it in there. I slide the axle up and it gets to around 3/4" to 1" up and it won't go up any further. It sounds like a very solid metal on solid metal sound. I've tried tapping it, shaking it, i've tried removing it and turning the axle shaft a tiny bit in case the splines were perfectly misaligned. Nothing. The gear selector isn't even close enough to touch yet. I even tried threading the bolts on and cranking them down, using that to force it up there. But that wasn't working either so I stopped before something snapped.
The only thing I can see that could possibly be the problem is the spout on the housing of the impeller. Like if it was not going up into it's hole properly. But I tried wiggling it around in every possible way and it just wouldn't go. I'm not sure what else to try and that thing is heavy so I can't just keep going forever. Any suggestions?

I'll post a video in a minute...

 

[l008com]

Ok here I am trying to jam it up there and it's just going absolutely nowhere:

 

[l008com]

Taking a closer look at that hose in the daylight, it wasn't just kinked, it was double kinked from being jammed in the housing of the motor when i closed it. I was able to get some vacuum hose to replace it at NAPA for like $3 so that's all good.

Also with another hour of messing around, I was able to get the lower unit to engage so that is fully installed.

I started up the motor and water is definitely flowing out the pee hole well, but it still felt like it was running hot to the touch. I was in my driveway, not in the water, so I couldn't let it run forever but I know when I'm running in water and feel the head, its always cold to the touch. It was not cold to the touch in my driveway. I took the thermostat cover off and everything looks fairly clean in there. I was expecting seaweed jamming everything up but everything looks good. So I guess ill just replace the thermostat anyway just for the hell of it and hopefully it's smooth cool sailing after that.

 

[l008com]

Ok since my last post, I went to west marine and replaced the thermostat. So new impeller, new thermostat, new hose for the water waste cooling water, and I also blew out the clean looking passageways as best I could with an air compressor.

And despite all that, its still getting very hot to the touch, and I'm sure if I actually put it in the water and drove, it would be overheating before long.

Any other ideas what the problem could be?

 

[l008com]

Update: I started to feel like I was really at an impass where I couldn't know if there was really something wrong with this motor until I went and opened it up for a while.

So I did that today. It was barely running at first, I had to push the choke button non stop. But eventually it started to run and I was able to give it more and more gas. I suspect I might have left some bad gas in there last season when the original overheating thing happened. Eventually it smoothed out and whenever there were no rowers or kayaks in sight, I would go lets just say, greater than headway speed Also this was on super fresh fuel with 2oz per gallon of Seafoam.

No overheating issues. No overheating beep, also the one time I opened the housing and felt the motor, this was at low rpm low speed, it didn't feel hot. So I think these two problems are fixed. I guess I'll never know what really fixed the overheating. Was it the impeller, was it the thermostat, was there a piece of seaweed that got jammed in there and after drying out for 12 months, going full throttle blasted it right out? I'll never know but it's real nice to be able to get out on the water again! I wish I had gotten it done 2 months ago but oh well.

 

[l008com]

If anyone is interested, while I was doing all this, I did make a video specifically for "how to" replace the impeller. There were tons of these videos already, so now theres one more

 

[l008com]

Hey guys, ressurecting this post to ask for a favor. I'm changing up the thumbnails for all my 'how to' type videos. For that, I need a photo of one of these impellers. Does anyone have one they can take a photo of for me? Ideally on a white or white-ish background. In or out of the packaging, possibly both. That would be really helpful! Thanks!

 

[Faztbullet]

 

[l008com]

Good thing I reverse image searched that image, I was looking for an original photo I could reuse, not someone elses image grabbed off amazon. Oh well I'll just go to west marine and snap a picture.

 

[saltchuckmatt]

Why does it matter?

 

[Faztbullet]

Here are 3 pictures you can use, just didnt want to pull it off truck and open package, but I did. Your welcome

 

[saltchuckmatt]

Here is a used one.....

 

[Faztbullet]

Heavily edit that 3rd pic as its got one of my pew-pews in background