Engine Troubleshooting - Please Advise!

My first thought is bad impellar, although I haven't yet taken a look at it...let me know what you think:

Took the boat out today and within' 2 minutes of running it I had some serious smoke out the exhaust and then engine shut down (w/o indicating high engine temp)...opened up the engine cover and the exhaust manifold from the engine was so hot that it was smoking. Also, quite a bit of water in the bilge, although I couldn't quite see where it had come from. Checked all hose clamps, etc and didn't notice anything unusual.

My initial thought is bad impellar...buy where'd the water in the bilge come from?

Anyone have similar problems? All input is much appreciated.

Both manifolds or just one ?

Walt,

From what I could tell, just the driver's side manifold. However, I didn't get a great view of the other immediately so I couldn't say for sure.

Why? What are your thoughts?

I was just thinking that if the impeller failed that the temp gauge would of gone up and both manifolds would be hot. I could be wrong ?

Shoot Peter a E-mail He might be able to help You out. http://www.wakeworld.com/cgi-bin/Discus4/board-profile.cgi?action=view_profile&profile=peter_c-users

Well if you have water in your bilge you have a big leak! If only the one manifold got hot it is probably not getting water due to the feed hose leaking or a cracked manifold. Now with that said the engine shutting down should not be caused by something like that. An engine can overheat without the temp gauge reading sometimes due to the fact that the sensor has nothing around it to conduct heat except air. The boat has a built in safety cut in case something goes wrong. Depeneding how hot the manifold got, there could be damage there.

Questions...did the boat re-start and if so how did it run? How much water in the bilge?

I used to change my impellar every year as a rule even though it was well over 100 hours of use.

A pretty sizable amount of water in the bilge. I was able to get the engine re-started, but only to trailer the boat so I still couldn't tell where the water was coming from. The engine didn't sound too great though...a little loud and it sounded "dry" (like a lack of oil lubricating it). I had checked the oil and transmission fluid before I went out, so I'm 99% sure that's not the issue.

I dropped it off at the dealer last night so we'll see what they have to say today.

Thanks for responses.

Hey NJ.. I had a 94 Sport and learned the hard way it's simple to install your impeller housing BACKWARD if you're not careful. Nearly exact same symptoms you encountered... white smoke, loud loud exhaust. Ended up completely disintegrating the impeller and had to paddle back in. My exhaust got so hot it melted some of the engine box insulation, plus I think it cracked some of the surrounding muffler fiberglass where it meets the exhaust manifold.

I'm not sure where you would've taken on water (we didn't) but sure sounds like a problem with your impeller.

If this is the first time since winter then you may have a cracked head/block/manifold caused from winter freezing. It could also be a bad or popped freeze plug.