Cobra Water Feed Hose/Pickup Tube

[jtmarten]

I had an overheating issue on the first trip out in our '87 Mach I Saturn II which has the OMC Cobra and 5.0L Chevy. I assumed it was the thermostat, so I replaced that as well as the impeller today. Impeller was replaced two years ago when I purchased the boat, and still looks like new.
Found out quickly after running it on the muffs this evening the hose that feeds water to the engine, connects the drive and transom, had come off the drive. Looks fine, just needs to go back on. Easier said than done unless your hands are the same size as a 3yr old's.
There is virtually no access of any kind; looks like the easiest way would be to remove the drive and gimbal housing.

Has anyone replaced this hose? Any tricks to getting it back on??? I've thought about pulling it from the transom, then fighting with that once it is attached to the drive again.

 

[Lou C]

You are talking about the hose that goes from the transom mount to the back side of the pivot housing, correct? There is a plastic fitting in the pivot housing that can break if the boat was not winterized correctly and cause this problem. The part is NLA but they are out there if you look around...yes you do need to remove the drive and pivot housing to replace it.....