Re: 1971 50hp evinrude elct/shft water pump
i have a 1970 115 hp with the push button shift. I would rate it a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10.
Changing my impeller is as follows
1. unhook the wires at the knife connectors. You will have to pull back the sleeves if they are still on.
2. I use electrical tape for this procedure. I wrap the ends of the two wires with electrical tape and then give myself about 3 feet of slack in the tape and do a hockey twist. Now what you have done is created a way to pull those wires back up after you have dropped the lower unit.
3. Unhook all the bolts in the lower unit. Be sure to take off your trim tab and find that sneeky bolt underneath.
4. Drop the lower unit and pull out it out. Once you get the shaft clear unhook the electrical tape from the ends of the wire.
5. Unscrew the 4 bolts in the housing. Take off the O ring at the top of the shaft so you can slide the housing off.
6. Pull out the old impeller. Be carefull not to loose the keyway. Take some grease and grease the inside. Take the new impeller and work it until you get it inside the housing. This can be a little annoying. There is a website that I have seen where you try to crank on the shaft with a wrench while applying pressure on the housing until the impeller slides its way in. Too much work in my opinion.
7. Once impellar is in housing slide it back over the shaft. You might have to work the impellar over a bit to get it to line up with the shaft. Once you get the housing back towards the bottom slide the keyway back in and slide the housing the rest of the way down.
8. Lock the bolts down, put the O ring back on. Grease the O ring and you should be done.
The hardest part for me, is actually getting the lower until back on. You have to mess with the water tubes and getting the shaft to line up so it goes all the way in. I have someone lower the power trim down once I get the shaft in until its almost all the way down. Then it usually goes in without any problems. I use a jack under the skeg to jack the lower unit all the way up and then put the bolts on. This way I don't have to hold it while i'm trying to bolt it in. Also before you push the lower unit in, re-tape the wires to the tape. Once you are getting the lower unit up, you have to line up those water tubes and pull the tape from the top to get those wires up again.
This is it in a nutshell on what I do. I hope it helps. I am sure others will help you out too.
