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Well just got her back from the shop where she got "lake ready", replaced bellow and fixed power steering leak and tested and looked over everything. so I start it on the trailer to make sure it will start and it does, so I unhook the winch strap and put it in reverse and it dies, well dad isn't paying attention and drives off with me stranded in front of the ramp floating away, and it won't start again! so after I drift for a while I find someone to give me a tow and about halfway back he runs out of gas! Well apparently he has a spare gallon he forgot about so after about 15 mins we get back underway. So I pull up to the ramp area and walk the boat onto the trailer. Well I continue to try and start it and after about 15 mins on the ramp it fires up. I let it run and work the advanced throttle to give her some gentle rev's and re launch. drives great but there is some smoking from the back which appears to be from the new bellow (I thought it would be normal for a while) and then I notice the temp gauge is topped out! Well I was trimmed all the way down at the time so I put it in neutral and am about to kill it when I hear a loud hiss (busted bellow from the heat). For some reason I then trim the out drive up halfway and the temperature goes down immediately. So I guess in the full down position it pinches a line somewhere and restricts flow. After that I left the drive trimmed up some and temperature was fine, oil stayed at 1/4 mark on the gauge at idle, and half mark on throttle, ran great, and the only problem was water coming in from the bellow. So I have to replace that again tomorrow before going back out. Any thing else I should look at?

Oh yeah, the winch strap broke and the jack swivel stuck so I got to replace those today too, guess I'm Busting Out Another Thousand again, but it's worth it because I had 3 different people stop to compliment the boat today, always a good feeling...

Yes....if the boot failed and water came into boat then I strongly suggest you have the gimble bearing and drive joint /universal joint/ changed out while drive is pulled.....those bearings aren't made to get dunked...a few bucks now will save many later. That boot has zero to do with engine cooling though. If u have a mercruiser then the exhaust boot may have failed if the exhaust flow thru the lower unit was restricted my be...never heard of that though.

The exhaust boot failing will not result in water coming into boat though....sound like water restriction somewhere....do u know when impellor was last changed????

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http://i1339.photobucket.com/albums/o71 ... wqm355.jpg


08' H210SS
VP 5.7Gi

The restriction was from the water intake hose being pinched when the drive was trimmed down all the way, got that figured out, and it is a VP 3.0 W/ SX outdrive, I was talking about raw water coming through the ruptured bellow from the riser, and since the boat did run hot briefly I checked the oil this morning and it is still new looking (not burnt or milky) so hopefully I didn't damage anything else, I am replacing the bellow, impeller, checking for impeller debris and the t-stat for damage, and will now check the gimble and drive joint, thanks! Hopefully the second trip to the lake will be better than this one was...

Had a similar experience this weekend. First weekend out and sat on the ramp cranking my VP 4.3 for 30 minutes. Finally gave up and brought her home.

Got home and sat there looking at the engine wondering why it wouldn’t start when this jumps out at me (not the arrow, but what it’s pointing at).

One smooth pinch and it clicked together. She started right up after that.

I guess the mechanic disconnected it when he replace the intake manifold last fall.

That sucks dude, at least it was an easy fix, but still the canceled trip sucks.

Definitely stinks when you have to cancel the trip when you are so revved up to see the water!

well got everything checked out and put on the muffs and ran her for about 30 mins with varying rpm's and she was sucking up the water, staying cool, and not leaking through the new bellow, so hopefully the weather will stay good so I can take her out in the next few days and make sure it works under load too, I'm actually kind of glad it happened, I learned some good basic trouble shooting and maintenance procedures for the new boat, now to learn about the outdrive...

Well got her out last friday and everything worked great except at WOT the RPM's are 5000-5200 instead of the recommended 4200-4600 with what I assume is a stock prop 14.25x21 which baffles me, but otherwise I'm happy with the progress, going to rewire the trailer and change the lights to LED's next, hopefully tomorrow.

With the stock prop I'd expect WOT to be about 5,000rpm.

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Mike
2005 Four Winns 230/240
VP 5.7GXi/DP
1998 F-150 XLT
Boat Pic

Then everything went great, even better