www.iFourWinns.com

I'm posting this trying to find a good direction to go in diagnosing what I broke on my boat today. I have a 1998 Four Winns Horizon RS 180 with a 4.3L GL Volvo Penta and SX Cobra drive.

A couple of weeks ago I discovered that I did a poor job winterizing my boat. The wife and I pulled it out of storage, hooked the muffs up and fired the boat up. I discovered that 3 freeze plugs had pushed out. So I began disassembling the back of the boat to start work. After two weekends of working I replaced the freeze plugs, fuel pump, changed the oil while it was easy, changed the oil filter, changed the fuel pump, fuel/water separator changed, spark plugs changed and I replaced the circulating water pump (I think that's what it is called on the boat).

So with those triumphs completed I decided to take the boat out to see how I did. Well I am unfamiliar with the lake I live beside (just moved down here) and unfortunately discovered it has a lot of rather shallow spots. I was in ~ 2' of water, almost beached and it took me about ten minutes to get back into deeper water. I looked down at my temperature gauge and saw it was maxed out at 250F. So I killed the engine. I checked to make sure the water inlet on the drive was not plugged up and it didn't appear to be. I fired the motor back up and it didn't try to cool at all, started slightly smoking and I killed it again. Paddled for a bit until a guy came and towed me back to the launch.

I've gotten the boat back to the house and pulled the inlet hose off of the raw water pump. It was filled with silt, so I flushed it out. Hooked it back up but the pump doesn't appear to be pulling water in, so is there a way to make sure the pump is bad or do I just replace it? I guess I really don't know where to start troubleshooting and what I need to do. I don't think the engine is burned up but it could be and is an entirely different problem. How do I go about flushing the cooling system on this motor? Any help from you all would be greatly appreciated and please don't beat me up to bad...I know I'm a dummy and should have taken more care being on an unfamiliar lake.

Sounds like you sucked up sand and your impeller is more than likely shot.

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1996 205 Sundowner DLX
5.0FL Volvo SX Cobra
Tow Veh: 2012 Nissan Frontier Pro-4X

....."I did a poor job winterizing our boat..."
Just how did you do it? One of those winterizing tanks to suck AF up the drive? Three pushed out freeze plugs? Sorry to tell you this but you probably have a cracked block. You engine was probably leaking water out of it while running which may have contributed to the overheating , although sucking up silt may have been the main cause. Is the motor oil milky?
Milky oil+water leaking out of a running engine usually=cracked block new engine time.
Those winterizing kits don't work on raw water cooled engines because if the thermostat does not open all the way and you didn't drain the block first, the engine will still have ain water in it. Sorry to tell you this I've been warning people not to do this for years...
And why I feel all inboards should be closed cooled at least a half system.

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88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II

The motor was fine prior to today. I've had it running on the muffs without any issues. No water in the oil, no white colored smoke...just fine. I tried just draining everything by breaking hoses. I've learned that is not a good way and I will change my tactics this year. My concern now is flushing the coolant system to get all of the silt out.

I'll try ordering an impeller kit first. I gave limited information somewhat so I can see how you would think the block is cracked, however, I do not think that is the case now. Freeze plugs are designed to help protect the block, just because they pushed out doesn't mean it's cracked.

I agree after doing some additional research. Hopefully a kit will fix that and then I can move on to making sure the motor is still good. I ran the motor on the muffs for an hour yesterday with the plug in the boat...not a single drop ended up in the bilge...so I'm pretty confident it was in good shape as of yesterday. Today...well that is a different story.

Those are not freeze plugs, some people call them that but they are casting plugs for casting the blocks in cast iron. If you had 3 of them get pushed out, then you had to have water freeze in the block.
Often a cracked block will not show milky oil when run on the muffs when not under load. The thermostat will barely open then, with the temp just reaching 160* or so.

Keep in mind GM designed these engines to have antifreeze in them, when we use them in a raw water cooled application we start to have issues that GM did not plan for.

Those winterizing kits can work OK on engines with closed cooling, because the issue of whether the thermostat opens or not is a moot point. But with raw water cooling, on a cool fall day I bet at least half the time the thermo will not open enough to let most of the raw water out of the block. Then you see AF coming out the exhaust and think its winterized but only the manifolds have AF in them. The big marinas that do 100s of boats do use this method but they have a trough that re-circulates AF to keep it hot enough to make sure the 'stat opens.

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88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II

Don't know for sure but I would start with opening the drain plugs on both sides of block and manifolds...use a wire to probe the openings to make sure clear....remove thermostat housing and run water thru block to clear it out....push some water thru manifolds thru the hoses that connect to therm housing to clear them...switch out the impellor ..they're cheap.....remove hoses from the impellor housing and push some water thru them...the large one should flush out the pickup thru the drive unit...the smaller one leads to therm housing.

I also would unhook water line to recirculating pump and let it drain....all this is really simple and free except for price of impellor.

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


08' H210SS
VP 5.7Gi

Well...I replaced the impeller and thermostat. I fired the boat up on the muffs and it ran fine. Took it out for a spin on the lake and everything went very well. Boat ran 45 mph across the water and maintained rpm's, oil pressure was good and water temperature was good.

Thanks for the comments and I think I got very lucky. Could have cost me a motor.

Great to hear that glad you don't have to replace the engine. This time the core plugs actually acted as a freeze plug which is very fortunate...

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88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II

That's great news!! I'm pretty thorough with winterization but this is a good reminder to us all that attention to detail is critical if we want to keep our boats on the water. Although it turned out to be an impeller issue, the scare good for all of us.

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Seth




2005 210 Horizon
5.0L GXi
"Don't Think Twice"