After my last excursion, I had a number of things to fix. The first and most important was the water pump. I spent days on the Internet and You Tube trying to figure out: 1. How to do change the water pump? and 2. Is it something I think I could do myself? I concluded it was a task I could do. So next, I had to obtain the parts. Luckily for me, Brass Pro has a Mercury service center. I took my motor’s serial number there and got a new water pump kit and thermostats for less than $60. I study the parts for a few days, Then, I was ready to tackle the job. I recruited my trusty friend and fishing comrade Jason, aka The Jigger. He was more than happy to help. Besides, the sooner the boat got fixed, the sooner we would back on the water.
We planned to do it on Friday, May 20th. Jason came over about 6pm. I was sure we would have enough time to finish the job that night. Every tutorial I seen showed the process taking less than 30 minutes. So I figured since it was our first time, we should be done in a couple of hours. I’d estimated we would be drinking some cold ones and planning our next trip by 9.
We started by dropping the lower unit to expose the water pump. It was held on the motor by 6 easy to remove screws. Once we remove the lower unit, the water pump was sitting in plain sight. We removed the four screws holding on the housing and removed it. The impeller was stuck in the housing. I studied the direction the impeller blades were positioned. I lightly greased the new housing to make installing the new impeller easier. Then, I installed the impeller into the housing being very careful to ensure the blades were in the correct direction. Next, it was onto removing the old seals and washers. Jason removed each one very carefully and laid them out in order. Next, we installed the new washers and seals. After that, we attached the new hosing. It was a little tricky lining ever thing up, but we got it after a few tries. That is it! We were ready to put it all back together. I started revising our drinking time to 7:30, well before my original estimate. We started putting the lower unit back on the motor. Well, the drive shaft was getting stuck on something in the engine. The tutorials said this might happen and gave a few things to do to get the drive shaft back in. I tried all of them to no prevail. After about 45 minutes, Jason pulled out his hydraulic jack and used it to “encourage” the shaft to go in the engine. That worked. However, there was another issue. We need to align the water intake pipe with the water pump housing opening. This was something the tutorial mention as a very important step. This is the pipe the water use to travel from the water pump to the engine. However, none of them actually showed how to do it. This made me believe it was simple and intuitive. Well, it wasn’t. We tried for more than an hour to align the hose, but could get it done. At this point, it was after 10. We were exhausted and frustrated. We decided to stop and call it a day.
Over the next few days, I search the internet for some guidance on reconnecting the water hose. I could find anything. So I decide to examine the water pump kit for clues. As I was looking at all the parts, a plastic tube kept looking familiar. After about 30 minutes, I remember there was a similar tube on the water intake pipe. It always seemed odd and out of place. I figured it must be the key to my alignment issue. Sure enough, the tube fits into the water pump housing extend the hole by 5 inches. It is used to guide the water intake pipe into the water pump making the alignment a breeze. With this new found understanding and confidence, I called Jason up and planed another time to finish the job.
On May 27th. We were at it again. We drop the lower unit, removed the old tube from the water intake pipe, installed the new tube in the water pump housing, placed the water intake into the tube, then lifted the lower unit back in to place. This time we had no problems. The process took less than 15 minutes. We replace the thermostats, which took about 5 minutes. Now, we were ready to hook the water hose to the engine and test the water pump. I started the engine and wait for the water to exist the engine. At first, there was nothing. This was expected. The tutorials said it might take a few minutes for the engine to heat up before seeing the water flow. It was a long 4 minutes. Finally, the water started flowing strongly. I let it run on idle for another 10 minutes to make sure the overheat sensor would not come on. After 15 minutes, I deemed it fixed.
Working Water Pump
At the end of the day, while it took two tries to replace the water pump, I learned a lot about my engine and saved over $350 by doing it myself. But, the true test will be my next fishing trip.
