OK to run boat for a minute without cooling water?

[Simoniz]

As described elsewhere, my Bayliner with 3.0l Merc had a slight overheat a couple of weeks ago when the outboard cooling hose failed. Its being craned out of the water on Friday, is there any problem with driving the boat 50' from its mooring to the dock where the crane will be, should take no longer than 1 minute? The water feed pump will be submerged (although the impellor will be replaced anyway), its just that there will be no fresh water feed to the engine or exhaust.

 

[stang32]

it would be best if there was at least some water in the lock itself. can you pull the upper circulator pujmp hose off and fill it with water. until is spills out of the thermostat housing? if your doing it for s couple minutes without warming the engine up you should be fine

 

[alldodge]

As described elsewhere, my Bayliner with 3.0l Merc had a slight overheat a couple of weeks ago when the outboard cooling hose failed. Its being craned out of the water on Friday, is there any problem with driving the boat 50' from its mooring to the dock where the crane will be, should take no longer than 1 minute? The water feed pump will be submerged (although the impellor will be replaced anyway), its just that there will be no fresh water feed to the engine or exhaust.

Should not be an issue, just watch your temp gauge

 

[tpenfield]

Exhaust will be more the issue. The engine block should be OK . . . the hot exhaust might melt some of the exhaust rubber fittings.

 

[stonyloam]

In one min. you may not overheat the engine, but you very well could burn up your exhaust shutters ( especially since it has been overheated already), same with the engine exhaust bellows. 50’ get out the paddle or tie your mooring lines together and drag it over.

 

[bfeils]

What Stonyloam said. Your shutters will be cooked.

 

[dennis461]

Ask another boat owner for a hand getting a line from mooring to dock...

 

[achris]

Paddle/swim out and attach a line. Paddle/swim back, pull boat 50'... Probably not even as hard as pulling the anchor up. Heck, you could even use the anchor rope.

 

[Leardriver]

You're creating one problem as you try to solve another. Float, tow, swim, drift, get your boat to the crane without sacrificing other parts.

 

[ziggy]

op didn't say alpha1 or gen II, but if alpha1, check this out. http://www.boatfix.com/merc/bullet/87/87_14.pdf
if gen II, i have no info on it's robustness. but imho, alpha1, or gen II, i'd not run it w/o water if it were mine. btw, page 2 of that pdf.

 

[achris]

op didn't say alpha1 or gen II, but if alpha1, check this out. http://www.boatfix.com/merc/bullet/87/87_14.pdf
if gen II, i have no info on it's robustness. but imho, alpha1, or gen II, i'd not run it w/o water if it were mine. btw, page 2 of that pdf.

From previous topics started by this poster, it's a 2000, Gen II.... I still wouldn't run it. 50' is no big deal to get a line across. You could throw the damn thing!

Chris....

 

[Scott Danforth]

or push off from the one dock and float it over the 50'

 

[tpenfield]

One thing for sure is . . . nothing GOOD can happen to the engine by running it even for a short time w/out water.

 

[Lou C]

Those exhaust flappers have an uncanny way of getting into difficult to extricate spots when they melt from an overheat. You may have to pull the drive and split the upper and lower gear housings to get the remains of them out. Do what you can to NOT have to run the engine with no cooling water. The work involved in fixing the damage will take a good bit longer than rigging up a way to tow it in. If it were me I'd use my little Walker Bay 10' with the Suzuki DF 2.5 putt putt on it.

 

[Simoniz]

Thanks for all the opinions. As I mentioned in the first post, Im going to replace the impellor anyway, and all the rubber parts on the outdrive, and Ill have a good look at the exhaust flapper with my boroscope when the drive is off. I doubt that the slight overheat that the boat suffered has done any real damage, the overtemp alarm sounded for about 5 seconds, and that's triggered by a 60 deg C (150 F) switch fixed to the exhaust downpipe just below the elbow. But Ill do a compression test to make sure that the head gasket is OK, currently seems to have been no mixing of oil and water.

In the end, I pushed the boat out of the box, started it and ran the motor for about 15 seconds to get to where they had the crane. Yes I could have paddled it or pulled it with a rope, but I doubt if even piston crowns and exhaust valves get very hot after 1/4 min at 1500rpm, let alone any other parts, which are pretty massive.