Impeller and Housing Fried
 

So I went to drop my boat in for the first time this year. We are way late, but the lake was closed the previous two weekends due to flooding. As I always do to start the year, I let it run for a min on the trailer backed into the water just to make sure everything is ok. I could smell that something was hot, so I shut her down. I touched the manifold and it was fairly warm, so I pulled out the plug in the manifold. Bone dry. Pulled the boat out of the water and started taking out the water pump. What I found when I got the pump out was not good. There were two big cracks in the housing. When I took apart the housing, the impeller was toast I went back and fished out chunks of the impeller in the trans line and the line leading to the water pump itself. My concern is, what caused the cracked pump. I mainly ask because I'm in a cold climate. I always run antifreeze through the boat and then drain. While I feel iwould have noticed no antifreeze draining out of the manifold, block, etc, when I was winterizing, it's been since October, so I'm a little jumpy. My assumption is that I got the impeller dry while doing this. That being said, I worry that the cracking in the housing could have been from water sitting there all winter. Any thoughts? Could I fry the housing from the impeller running dry?

For what it's worth, the boat is an 01 Elite V.

how cold was your winter?

Is it a plastic housing pump or bronze housing pump?

Plastic. I'm in Illinois. It was a warmer than usual winter, but it's still plenty cold to freeze.

Happens all the time. No worries replace it and get on the water!

So I took a few deep breaths and am feeling better about it. It's just been a long time since October. I know I had antifreeze coming out the exhaust when I was winterizing, so I'm feeling a little better. Just have never seen a part fail quite like that housing did. I'll order a new housing tonight.