Reassure Me?

I know no one can say for sure, but I blew my impeller this past weekend. I started the boat, it started right away, sounded a little off, idled for a couple of minutes, then accelerated and noticed the temp gauge moving past 160, its normal resting spot. Engine warning whistle went on, started to smoke some and I shut it down. I pulled the impeller and all the spindles were gone. You guys have great thoughts, do you think I fried the engine, or do you think it will be ok?

dg

The engine should be ok as long as it cooled down naturally.

^ what leo said . . .

what does cool down naturally mean?

dg

Just shut down the engine and let it slowly cool down on it's own

If it started to smoke. I would pull the exhaust tubes loose and look on the in side to make sure they are not blistered. I would change the oil and make sure there is no water in it(blown head gaskets). Make sure to watch the oil drain in case the water and oil separated. I had an impeller shred. The motor started to smoke and I shut it down. It was to late I had blown both head gaskets and blistered both exhaust tubes.

My brother once lost the lower rad hose on a Chrysler 440. He didn't notice the temperature spike and continued to drive. He noticed he had to give it more gas but thought it must be a long hill (prairies can be deceiving) but finally decided to pull over when he realized he had his foot on the floor.
The engine seized solid and he got a tow back.
We tried starting it the next day. It ran. We changed the oil and put another 40,000 miles on it before the car got sold.

That is what can happen. Not always though so change the oil and try. Hope that long winded story reassures you.

I overheated my boat this spring and warped a valve. I would do a compression test to make sure the compression is good. Mine was like 120 on 7 cylinders and 40 on one of them. Had to take the heads off and get a valve job. New gaskets and everything I was a little of $1000 doing it myself, but my impeller pump was also bad so that was like 280 or something of that price.

I also had a friend have one overheat and he had no problems with it and that was 2 years ago. So it just kind of depends. Hope yours is ok.

no reason to listen to lost of horror stories.

Change the oil, change the impeller, see what happens. If there is water in the oil, take note, may be indication of somethign major. If it runs ••••••• get it checked out.....if not, don't worry about it and try not to do it again.

Every one has a story. Better safe than sorry.

How hot did the motor get ( according to the guage) when you shut it down?

Adam,

It was nearing 200 as I shut it down.

dg

the enginges fine. flush out all the lines that the water flows though. the peices of the impeller is stuck in those lines and in the thermostate.

it's fine

a lot of times when your impeller shreads, the pieces can block flow in the engine. When you do fix it, watch you temp closely as one of the blades can block the thermostat and other passages and lead to overheating.

1boarder, if I do see the temp go up does that mean i have another piece of the impeller somewhere in the engine that i need to try and dig out?

dg

^^^^
Could be the case. The most common places for impeller blades to get stuck are the tranny/VDrive cooler and the fuel pump cooler housing. Pull as many hoses as you can and check for obstructions.

If you only hit 200 degrees, you have no worries about further damage.

Maybee

I have heard of people shreadding their impellers and having trouble with peices and random overheating issues. Eventually they fished out a piece of impeller and all the problems disapeared.

Is your transmission cooler (metal canister that cooles your tranny oil) before or after the raw water pump. If it is after, it may be as simple as pulling the line off the suction and getting the pieces out (most of them have a screen). If the raw water pump goes straight to the block, this means that all the pieces went into the block. At a minimum, I would take out the thermostat and run it so the pieces can flush out.

Anyone have any first hand experience with this situation? It may be the exception instead of the norm, but I have heard of it happening.