Honda 9.9 Won't pump Water

Hello, all. I just bought a 2002 Honda 9.9 with controls. I cannot get it to pump water into the thermostat housing. I replaced the impeller. I believe I flushed all the lines upwards and downwards, yet the thermostat housing is still bone dry when I was testing the motor today. It does have water coming out the pee hole. After about 10 minutes running, the hot horn goes off. What could I be doing run? How far should I have the motor submerged in the bucket/trash can filled with water? Could that be my problem? Any help is appreciated.

Hi,
It doesn't sound like you're doing anything wrong but it does sound as if you've got a pretty bad blockage and haven't dug deep enough yet.

I think you probably need to remove the water jacket cover and see what's going on in there. Item 8 in the link below. You will need the seal, item 9, at a minimum and I recommend getting the zinc with a new screw too. Items 1 and 12.

https://www.boats.net/catalog/honda/outboard-by-hp-serial-range/9-9hp/bfp9-9d2-lhsa-2002/thermostat

My guess is that this outboard was used in salt water and never flushed. That can cause alot of corrosion in the cooling system. I hope I'm wrong about that but I've seen it many times.

If it's not too eaten away in there then maybe you just have something lodged in a passage. This would likely be a piece of an old water pump impeller. Taking the gear case off and back flushing from the head with full water pressure along with 125psi compressed air is the best way I know to knock stuff loose and blow it out the bottom..Don't worry about the pressure as there's nothing in there that you can damage.

I hope this helps and

Good luck.

Okay, thank you! I will try this this week. I actually thought about pulling the water jacket cover, but was getting frustrated, so I walked away.

A second question, perhaps I should start a new thread for this week. I thought it would be simple, but I've got an electrical problem I can't figure out. The motor will not shut off when I turn the key off. There is a lighter gauge black wire coming out of the harness I can't figure out. If I wire to the black wire coming from the ignition switch, then I lose spark and can't start at all. If I leave that wire loose, then the motor starts fine, but I can't kill the motor by turning the key. Any thoughts here? Thank you very much!

Hmmm,
Are you able to shut the engine off by pressing the emergency stop or pulling the e stop clip?

My wiring diagram shows the black wire from e stop switch going to the black wire at ignition switch and they are both connected together to the black wire in the harness.

The black with red wire at estop switch is connected to the black with red wire from the ignition switch and they are both connected to the black with red wire in the harness.

When the estop goes in, it connects the black (ground circuit) wire to the black with red (CDI unit circuit) wire providing ground to the terminal on the CDI that stops the engine.

The same connection is (or should be) made when the ignition is turned to the off position.

If the estop switch kills the engine and is connected to the ignition switch AND the harness as I've described then there may be a problem with your ignition switch.

Water should be 6" above the water pump in your test bucket.

Good point racerone!

Also, Hisson83,

After re-reading your original post I realize that you are running the engine a long time (10 min.) before you get an alarm. That means it must be getting some cooling...I hope!

Anyway I hope you know that the engine's exhaust is coming out in the water and, depending on the size of the container and the amount of water you have in there, the water can heat up pretty rapidly if you don't have any flow going to cool it off. A proper test tank will have an inlet and drain for keeping the water cool while running for more than two or three minutes.

Two or three minutes running in a trashcan or bucket is about max without adjusting the water temp.

Had a 9.9 Honda idling in a 45 gallon drum for about an hour.-----Water was around 100F after all that running.

Thank you, everyone. I'm wondering if maybe I just didn't have the motor deep enough in the water. Will try again this week and post an update. Hopefully I'll be able to get the wiring figured also. Where could I find a readable picture of a diagram? All the ones I find on the internet are not are almost impossible to decipher the font.

So good news. Motor ran for 25 minutes today without overheating. Believe I have that issue solved. Still can't figure out the wiring. Everything is wired up like the diagram you described. But when I connect the black wire from the harness to the black wires from the e-stop switch and the ignition switch, I lose spark completely and cannot start the motor. If it is not connected, I can start the motor, but can't shut it off with the key...Weird. Thanks for any more tops you can provide!

How are you shutting the engine down?

All I can think of is that the terminals in the ignition switch for the bl/rd and bl wires are shorted together inside the switch. Or, the wires are connected to the wrong terminals on the switch.That would be easy enough to check with an ohmmeter.

My diagram is for the BF15 and 20 so there may be some subtle differences to the 9.9.

One other possibility is that the black ground wire is also used to connect a tach, speedo, fuel gauge and volt meter. So, it could be that the console wiring got mixed up and bypassed the switches somehow.

I would still take a look under that water passage cover to make sure you have good zinc in there and nip any corrosion or salt build up in the bud.

Good luck.

I shut the motor off simply by connecting the black wire from the harness to the black wires that come from the ignition switch and the kill switch. This kills the spark. Problem is the spark stays gone unless you disconnect those wires. I'll investigate the switch. Maybe there is an issue there. For right now, I'm using the choke toggle switch as a cheat kill switch. Just bothers me I can't figure out how to turn the motor off with the key. Thanks again.

Yeah, that would drive me coo-coo. If it isn't the ignition switch then it's probably something simple with the way the wires were run. Simple but maybe a pain to track down.

Good luck.