Ever drive your boat with the "ear muffs" still on?

[IcantDo55]

I can't figure this one out. Yesterday, I went out put the boat in the water and drove around prob 20 miles and boat ran great, no problems at all. Can home late last night and went to flush motor and could not find the "ear muffs"? Gave up looking around the drive way today and bought a new set.

Put them on and started the motor, no water came out of the exhaust? Confused I pulled the 5/8" hose running from transom to the thermostat housing and started motor on muffs and no water came out of the hose??? Put the garden hose to the 5/8" hose and water came out of the lower unit, so its not blocked. Put garden hose to the thermostat housing and water came out exhaust area like it should.

Sounds to me like the lower unit water pump is dead, but why did it run fine for 9 hours yesterday with no problems? I watch gauges like a hawk and it never got hot.

This leads me to the title of this post...could I have left the muffs on the drive when I put it in the water? Could this have destroyed a one year old lower unit pump?

Ideas?

 

[sltintexas]

Re: Ever drive your boat with the "ear muffs" still on?

so if you left them on the motor, doesn't that mean you would have to disconnect the hose with the muffs still connect to the motor? wouldn't unscrewing the hose from the muffs be a little difficult like that.....not impossible, but enough that you'd say, i think i'll take off the muffs to unscrew the hose.

I don't think you left them on, and if you did, I think they'd fall off at a very slow speed, or when you trailered the boat to the water (assuming you trailer your boat).

when i lost my muffs last, I found them right after I bought the new set.

 

[IcantDo55]

Re: Ever drive your boat with the "ear muffs" still on?

so if you left them on the motor, doesn't that mean you would have to disconnect the hose with the muffs still connect to the motor? wouldn't unscrewing the hose from the muffs be a little difficult like that.....not impossible, but enough that you'd say, i think i'll take off the muffs to unscrew the hose.

I don't think you left them on, and if you did, I think they'd fall off at a very slow speed, or when you trailered the boat to the water (assuming you trailer your boat).

when i lost my muffs last, I found them right after I bought the new set.

Ok the muffs I have fit very tight on the drive so trailering will not drop them. They also had a swivel on the hose side so I do usually leave them on the drive when I kink the hose and unscrew it from the muffs, too lazy to go to house to turn off the water when I change from muffs to sprayer to clean the rest of the boat.

 

[Gary H NC]

Re: Ever drive your boat with the "ear muffs" still on?

In a way it makes sense. They were still clamped to the drive then when you got up some speed they fell off in the lake.
That would have starved the impeller long enough to damage it.
Maybe it was just pumping enough for the motor to not over heat.

I would drop the lower and take a look if it were mine..