2009 SX210 Neither Engine P*ssing, No Overheat

[CarCynic]

I'll post results after a sea trial.

Today was a beautiful day on the Indian River. The boat ramp was so crowded that I had to wait for someone to leave so that I could park the truck/trailer after I launched the boat.

We finally set out, and once past the "Resume Normal Safe Operation" sign (Ha! They don't know whose at the helm! -- Just kidding!) I got on a minimum plane.

Definitely more water from the Starboard engine pilot than there was before, but less than from the other port, and the temperature of the water was still higher from the Port engine pilot, although again, not as much difference in temperature as there was previously. The flow would still occasionally stop or sputter, but now it was almost constant.

No overheat light even after 20+ minutes at appox 35mph/7000rpm. We got to our destination, and anchored amongst dozens of other boats. After about an hour of swimming/sunning/magnet fishing (we found one bottle cap for our efforts), we started up again.

Re-joining the channel was like merging onto an LA freeway (some exaggeration), but when safe, I got up on the plane again.

One the way back, with both a passenger and myself checking the pilots periodically, there was no interruption of flow that we saw, although I'd still say that the forward pilot was not quite as strong as the other.

I was a little more aggressive on the way back. I still didn't push it, but I was passing pontoon boats like --- like they were pontoon boats.

No overheat light. Unfortunately, no one checked either pilot water temperature on the return trip.

Back at home, I cleaned and flushed the boat. During each engine flush, I rev'ed the engine with the "neutral" button pushed. In both cases, I got brief flows of water out of the respective ports when I did so. First time I'd seen water when running from the hose, and in this case, I'd say each engine behaved exactly the same as the other.

It's possible that removing the blockage from the raw water lines is allowing normal operation to clean out the engine.

I'm going to research a safe engine flush for a open loop marine engine. Maybe I can arrange some sort of IV drip. I realize that I will have to run the engine during the flush to avoid anything entering the cylinders.


Any recommendations on how to flush the engine intact and in the boat, and what product to use, would be helpful.