Possible Blocked Water Passage on '97 30hp 2 stroke

[williambrady]

I have a 1997 30hp 2 stroke precision blend motor model ELRV. Trying to start this motor after it had been sitting for several years. Started the motor up on a fresh remote tank of gas noticed immediately that the motor would not run unless I had the throttle on high. As soon as I let up on the fast idle switch the motor would stall. Also, immediately noticed that there was no stream of water coming out of the tell tale hole out of the back of the motor. I only ran the motor for a few minutes and did not allow the motor to come up to overheat or anything. Before I can work on my carb problem, I need to fix the water problem. Dropped the lower unit to inspect the water pump. There was very little corrosion but the impeller on the water pump was deformed and stiff. Before I replace the water pump I decided to see if I could get water to flow from the exit hole on the motor by putting a hose attatched directly to the water pump tube. When I did this it acts like there is a blockage. No water is coming out of the top of the motor. I assume there must be a blockage somewhere. I ran a weed whacker trimmer line as far down the tell tale hole as I could, which was not far at all, fished around in there for quite a while. No gook came up so I could not clear any blockages there. Then I fished the wire up the water tube from the bottom of the motor to see if I could unclog something from there. No luck there either. The next thing I did was to remove the thermostat and inspect it. Quite a bit of corrosion on the thermostat. I ran the trimmer line down the hole for the thermostat nothing unclogged from there either so then my next step I tried was to install the cover for the thermostat without the thermostat and then again tried to run water up the water tube to see if it would free flow again. No luck. At this point, I'm not sure what my choices are. If there is a blockage in the cylinder head or somewhere in the exhaust. Any advice is welcome on what my next steps would be to take care of this problem.

[grf00]

Take the thermostat cover off at top of the cylinder (sorry did not read carefully enough) An expert will come on shortly. maybe rest will help. You will probably need to clean carbs. Be sure to screw BOTH jets out. (the idle is behind rubber plug) Order your water pump impeller,key, and do the carb repair kits. $30 for all the parts for both carbs..great deal on here) thermostat gasket. Spray carb cleaner up thru jet holes. Pass a small wire carefully thru removed jets and spray good. It will run like new. Mine had set for years and runs like new now. I had to replace the three diaphragms also in fuel pump on lower carb. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTBAvOih934

[williambrady]

Latest update on trying to unclog whatever's plugged. I removed the thermostat cover and thermostat, then blew high pressure compressed air through the hole on the bottom of the thermostat housing. This did produce some air coming out of the bottom of the water tube. The lower unit is still disconnected so I could reach one hand underneath while blowing air from the top to feel that there was air coming through. Not a horrendous amount, but still some flow. I then tried to blow compressed air through the side of the thermostat housing which flows into the cylinder head. This opening was odd shaped and I was not able to get a tight seal and was not able to feel any air exiting from the tell tale hole by doing this. Don't know if it was because I could not get a tight seal or because that is where the blockage actually is. At this point, I'm not working on the carbs yet because I need to take care of this water issue first so I don't overheat, but when I do work on the carb, I had seen online several youtube videos of people using a seafoam treratment by putting a can of seafoam carb cleaner in a one gallon remote tank then running the motor on this super rich carb gas clean mixture. At least online, there are lots of people calling this a good technique not sure if it is or not. Was told this is a good method of shock cleaning carbs, but that it will kill spark plugs which is not a big deal. Anyone's input is again most welcome.

[grf00]

'using a seafoam treratment by putting a can of seafoam carb cleaner' Complete waste of time and money. If the idle jets are clogged, even the Gunk spray carb cleaner has a rough time at doing it till you break thru with the small wire. If you actually got it strong enough and say there were a small enough open that is was flowing thru, it would probably wipe out the rubber diaphragm fuel pump, maybe even the tip of the needle valves in the float system.

[travjudy1]

plugged water ports

I have a 130hp that I only run in salt water. About every 4-5 years, I pull the heads, thermostats and water jackets and take them to the carwash for a good high pressure cleaning. They get pretty nasty in the salt water and this seems to work well.
Travis

[TownsendsFJR1300]

'using a seafoam treratment by putting a can of seafoam carb cleaner' Complete waste of time and money. If the idle jets are clogged, even the Gunk spray carb cleaner has a rough time at doing it till you break thru with the small wire. If you actually got it strong enough and say there were a small enough open that is was flowing thru, it would probably wipe out the rubber diaphragm fuel pump, maybe even the tip of the needle valves in the float system.

I agree the best way is to pull the carbs, the jets and visually inspect and clean until you see day light.

With that said, my friend had a 500cc Kawasaki MC, dual carbs, completly clogged. (Bike sat for years, under a cover, half a tank of fuel, no stabilzer, etc)

I offered to pull them and clean, he didn't want to pull them for some reason..

We ended up draining the carbs, put STRAIGHT SEAFOAM into the bowls (thru the fuel line) and let sit. Drained them later hooked up an auxilary fuel tank (tank was rusted BAD). Cranked it, one (of two) cylinders hit, did some revving, a bunch of smoke later, running on both cylinders, idleing, etc. NEVER pulled the carbs off.. I use Seafoam for different applications but even this surprised me.

For the op, are you missing any parts of the impeller that may have gotten shoved up into the block? Any signs of mud daubers? Using that line with water at the same time may be more successful too.. Pulling all rubber water lines, one at a time and checking would be on my list as well..


If the block itself is corroded badly, here's some interesting reading that may help:

http://www.yamahaoutboardparts.com/f...g-th19434.html

http://www.yamahaoutboardparts.com/f...m-th23666.html

If it was used mostly in salt water and NOT flushed much, salt WILL build up (as noted in the above links).

God luck and please post your results..

[williambrady]

For the op, are you missing any parts of the impeller that may have gotten shoved up into the block? Any signs of mud daubers? Using that line with water at the same time may be more successful too.. Pulling all rubber water lines, one at a time and checking would be on my list as well

Latest update on the blocked water issue. After several attempts at using high pressure air shot through the bottom of the thermostat housing I"m able to get water flowing from the water pump tube all the way out of the thermostat housing. Also I'm now getting a weak stream of water through the tell tale tube. When I remove the water pump itself from the lower unit the interior of the water pump housing around the hole where it meets the shaft was melted and burned all the way around.My thoughts are that some of this material has to be wedged up in the block at some place. Even though I'm able to get water through the tell tale I'm not sure if water is flowing into the cylinder block. On that, I can't tell. After looking at the links that people were using the rydlyme marine flush, that stuff looks like it does a pretty good job at removing scale build up but I don't know how effective it would be disloding any possible plastic parts that might be lodged in the passages of the cylinder block. It seems the only way to be sure is to pop the head and to see how the passages look. I'm a little bit leery of doing that for fear of breaking one of the head bolts. Even though the lower unit came apart without a hitch, but head bolts are quite a different story since they go through the heat treatment.

[TownsendsFJR1300]

A bunch of forward progress...

Most everything will be visable with the head off. Pretty much a crap shoot at this point.

Just curious, was the engine used alot in salt water and flushed much if so? Does their appear to be lots of corrosion on the outer block?

IMO, I would fix/finish the lower unit and assemble (there shouldn't be any reason why it would have to come off again). Do the carbs and get it running.

IMO, If it doesn't overheat, leave it alone. If it does overheat, well, looks like the head is coming off..

BTW, we pulled the heads off my neighbors 200 V6(about the same year as yours), salt water blockage big time in the lower cylinders. He rarely flushed it, used in brackish/salt water.

The block had obvious corrosion showing under the hood. We were able to R&R both heads, ALL bolts, none broke. Luck, perhaps but it can be done.

BTW, is there anyway to see how much impellor broke off and how much you recovered?

[williambrady]

Here's the story on the boat and motor. My wife's 86 year old grandfather purchased the boat and motor new from a dealership. Soon after he purchased it in 1999 he discovered that the motor mated to the boat was two years older than the boat. There was a little bit of underhanded shannanigans going on on the dealer's part. They worked out a deal to appease her grandfather and went out of business shortly after that. My wife's grandfather used the boat very little, the motor he probablay put less than 100 hours on, but it was only used in a salt water bay. He was very good at flushing and maintaining it on his part. But the thought is in my head -- what if this motor was a problem motor that the dealership stuck her grandfather with. It being two years older than the boat, who knows where it was or what was done to it. All this being said, visually the lower unit the head, everything so far looks very clean, no corrosion no scale build up that I can see. The only weird thing is the water pump housing itself, the hole that the shaft fits through on the housing is melted, which tells me someone had to have run the motor dry and the housing heated up with the friction from the shaft rubbing against its plastic parts. The impeller itself in the water pump is all there, no pieces missing, just deformed and the vanes are rigid and hard and will not straighten up. Not sure if it's an issue that the parts on the water pump are different from what the manual and repair kit show for this motor. The repair kit shows it using an o ring around the impeller cup the water pump I have does not have this o ring gasket, it actually has a full paper gasket instead of the o ring. Also, the water tube on this water pump was fitted directly into the water pump housing whereas the manual and repair kit show it fitting into a rubber grommet boot that then slips into the water pump housing. I know that my wife's grandfather never had the water pump replaced, so it concerns me that it's different than the manual shows. At this point, I'm planning on just installing the water pump kit, ordering a carb kit and going through the carbs, and just calling it good. If I have overheating problems than I'll know that the head needs to come off and I'll go from there.

[TownsendsFJR1300]

Sounds like you have it all covered...

If your not missing any parts of the impeller, you should be fine with the entire water pump rebuild kit.

And agreed, someone ran it out of the water without muffs.

The kit will have everything you need usually including alignment pins, new bolts, key way. etc.

Pm sent also.