1969 Mercury 350 35hp outboard:<br /><br />Last year my boat was docked at a public dock in town. I used it several times, but near the end of the boating season, there was a stretch of 2 or 3 weeks where I didn't use the boat. I decided to pull the boat out of the water for the year (which involves driving the boat for about 5 minutes from the dock to a public launch.) Almost immediately I noticed no pee stream and the powerhead was starting to generate smoke. Well, I took it real easy getting back to the launch - I didn't want to go too fast for fear of overheating and killing the engine, or too slow, for fear of the same by taking too long to get to the launch. I made it to the launch believing full well that a new impeller was in order (and hoping nothing else was wrong.)<br /><br />This year I was getting ready to change the impeller, but I thought I'd try to run the motor on the muffs first for giggles. Well, the motor started right up, appeared to run well, and had a solid pee stream - which was quite a surprise.<br /><br />My question is this: What could have happened here? My guess is that some type of aquatic life colonized the water intake and temporarily blocked it resulting in the near-overheating when I was pulling the boat out of the water last year; and that it became dislodged at some time. Does anyone have any thoughts on this, and should I still replace my impeller (even though it appears to be operating correctly)?<br /><br />Thanks in advance for your replies.
