Impeller replacement, Any advice?

[militaryboating]

I have a 1989 Galaxy with a murcruiser 5.0 and an alpha one out drive. I am new to the whole owning a boat and got anxious in the driveway and started it for about 30 seconds with no water hooked up, I did it again about 2 hours later but i didnt have any muffs so i just held the waterhose to the water intake. I started a post earlier and almost everyone says that i cooked my impeller, so tommorrow i think im going to dive in and see how bad the damage is. my questions are:

If i tear it apart and the impeller looks good can i re-use the seals that came off of it?

is there any chance that nothing happened? could i hook muffs and water to it to check? i know i shortened its life, but if i could make it for the summer i would go through it completely this winter.

can the impeller come apart and ruin the water pump or anything else for that matter?

Any advice or sights on how to would be awesome. I looked at the service manual, but couldnt find "How to change an impeller" so if you know of any good websights, or any advice would be helpful.


Thanks

 

[bomar76]

Re: Impeller replacement, Any advice?

Weigh the cost of an impeller against the cost of a new engine.
........and it is insane to tear a drive apart to check an impeller and not replace it.

BTW...there is no chance you did no damage to it.

All the info is in the factory manual.

 

[Bt Doctur]

Re: Impeller replacement, Any advice?

Section 3B this link ,page 8
http://www.boatfix.com/merc/Servmanl/6/6B3R3.PDF

 

[Don S]

Re: Impeller replacement, Any advice?

Click here and you can download the whole manual in one download instead of just one section.

 

[militaryboating]

Re: Impeller replacement, Any advice?

Ok you have me there an impeller is a must. should i look at replacing anything else? Did i destroy the water pump too?

 

[tractoman]

Re: Impeller replacement, Any advice?

It's your boat, if you ignore the advice of everyone you are the one who'll pay the price for it in the end. Your impeller can come apart, and pieces can get lodged in the water passages and thermostat and block the cooling system. The impeller instructions are in the sterndrive manual, specifically in the lower unit section. I'd change it, as would everyone else. It's your call.

 

[ken_23434]

Re: Impeller replacement, Any advice?

The water pump on the engine should be fine. Your only concern is the water pump in the outdrive. Getting the kit that includes the upper half of the pump housing costs about $20 more than the kit that just inludes the impeller and the various o-rings and gaskets. You have to take the upper half of the water pump off to get to the impeller anyways. So, replacing all the bits is not more work than just doing the impeller.

Page 3B-14 is the section that shows the steps for getting to the impeller. Really, you will be in section 3B of manual #6 from beginning to end, however you will stop at the step once you get the impeller removed. The next few steps has you removing all the gears and such from the prop shaft. On back a few pages, you get to the section for re-installation. That part will walk you through reassembling the water pump and putting the gear housing back on.