Overheating?

[jfkkesler]

1987 Force 125

Today, I started up my motor on the muffs, and after a few minutes, smoke (more than usual) was coming out of the exhaust and off the block. I pulled the lower unit, and found my impeller shredded to bits. Now, rewind a few weeks... A few weeks ago, I started up my motor after installing a new gas tank, to make sure everything was hooked up properly. It started up no problem, but I noticed it wasn't spitting any water. I figured that it had a thermostat that hadn't kicked in yet, so that's why it wasn't spitting water. I let it run for a few minutes, then shut it off. Now Fast forward back to present... I now know that it wasn't spitting water because the impeller was shot, and I now realized that I have run it for about 10-15 minutes overall, most likely with little to no water circulating. How much damage could this have caused? Tomorrow I will be installing a new impeller, and I'm hoping that I didn't do too much damage. What kind of damage could I possibly be looking at here? Thanks guys

 

[eurolarva]

Re: Overheating?

I have lost three impellers in the last 10 years. When they went I was full throttle and the motor overheated. The metal gets so hot that the engine expands to where the pistons no longer can freely move and it will seize up. After the second time I had other issues and had the exhaust gaskets off the motor and I saw no damage on anything. The carbon build up was amazing but no damage from the overheat. I think a chrysler will take a beating occasionally. You may have gotten lucky. To be safe get a compression tester and see if there is any damage