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Inconsistent Water Flow through Mariner 60

D

Daniel Gemal

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"Hi all,
I have what I think

"Hi all,
I have what I think is a weird one. I tried looking through all the previous posts and did not see any answers. I am fairly new to this, so excuse me if this is a stupid question.

I have a 1996 60 HP Mariner.
Engine runs great apart from this problem. At some time in the past the previous owner must have run through sand and got some in the water lines. Since then there have been problems getting decent water flow.
It runs great with a strong flow, then suddenly it just starts to dribble water out.
I have a piece of wire that I shove in the outlet hole and as soon as I insert it, the flow comes back strong, then about 10 minutes later it slows down again and I need to do the insertion again and it is good for another 10 minutes or so. I had it to a mechanic and he said there was sand impacted in the tube, and he cleared it and checked the water pump and impeller and said they were fine, but this problem keeps re-occuring.
It is not devastating, but just annoying have to stop every 10 minutes to shove the wire up the hole and I would love to solve the problem.

Has anyone seen anything like this?

Thanks in advance for any help."
 
"Daniel, short answer, yes hav

"Daniel, short answer, yes have seen it - and can be quite the pain in the butt to get rid of. I would suspect that there is a fair bit of sand/debris in the powerheads waterjacket - not good - could cause overheating and engine damage.

Although a bit of work, personally, I would pull the head cover and the lower unit and then flush out all the water channels from there back (and check/flush/clean up the thermostat at the same time).

Aside from your time, the only real item that would require replacing in the process is the gasket on the head cover."
 
"Hi Graham,
Thank you for the

"Hi Graham,
Thank you for the excellent help. Much appreciated.
I did the work and on the surface, running on muffs it all seems to work great.
I will take the boat out in the next couple of days and let you know how it runs.
While I was in there I also changed the water hose and also the hose to the water pressure guage as they seemed quite perished.
I converted the connector from the compression type to a barb for the pressure hose in the process. Might as well, I was digging arouns in there.

Thanks again for all the help."
 
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